


A Suitable Match

by fringedweller



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2011-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 15:46:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fringedweller/pseuds/fringedweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This section is image heavy. If that's not good for you there's an alternate version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/38317.html) without the images.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)**fringedweller**  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/)**searingidolatry** who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 1000/49500  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This section is image heavy. If that's not good for you there's an alternate version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/38317.html) without the images.

 

_Chapter One: Where letters are exchanged, secret plans are made, and Admiral Pike receives two big surprises._

 

Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess Amanda of Vulcania to the Dowager Duchess of Albany, 2nd February 1815.

 

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2mrrwvl)

 

The Dowager Duchess of Albany to the Countess of Shrewsbury, 27th February 1815

 

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2eft7dk)

 

 

Christopher Pike, naval hero and newly appointed admiral, Duke of Riverside and twelfth Baron Greenwood, snored.

His wife of three months turned in the weak dawn light to look at his handsome profile and smiled, despite the fact that she had been woken abominably early. Her mother, on the eve of her marriage, had taken her aside for a talk where she had been advised to keep a separate bedchamber from her husband, in case his behaviour at night was... _unwelcome_.

Una Pike, nee Chapel, now Duchess of Riverside, Baroness Greenwood, didn’t think that her mother had been referring to snoring when she had passed on her advice, but it did bear thinking about. Then Christopher rolled over lazily and wrapped his strong arms around her, and Una forgot the idea immediately. If she banished Christopher to another room, then she wouldn’t get to enjoy moments like this. However, he could not remain unpunished. She extended a finger and ran it lazily over his ribs, watching with amusement as the firm muscles there rippled with the gentle sensation.

“Minx,” he said sleepily, his eyes still shut.

“Your snoring would wake the dead,” she told him.

“Lies,” he yawned.

She prodded him more firmly in the ribs.

“ _Not_ lies,” she said indignantly. “You woke me up.”

“Really?” he asked, dropping his head to nuzzle at her neck. “My apologies, your Grace. Have you any demands for reparations?”

“Hmm,” Una sighed, “I think I can trust you to deliver an appropriate response without instruction.”

Her husband let out a huff of air that served as laughter. Una practically purred with pleasure as his large, weather-beaten hands toyed with the fine silk of her night rail, before slipping underneath it to caress her bare skin.

Una may have only have been a wife for three months, but she had waited seven long years to marry Christopher Pike and she was determined to enjoy every moment as a married women. Christopher had taught her everything she knew about the pleasures of the marriage bed, and she was always keen to indulge herself with the blissful sensations he awakened in her.

Their morning lovemaking was relaxed, and lazy; their evening lovemaking always passionate and exhausting. There had even been several times when he had appeared suddenly in her drawing room in the afternoon, locked the door and performed such acts of carnal wickedness she was sure that the windows would steam up.

He called her “Number One” as a playful tease on her name, but also as an indication of the place she held in his heart and in his mind. She had not expected him to be faithful during their years apart, but he swore that he had, and she believed him absolutely.

Una felt like the luckiest woman in the world, right until her maid arrived a few hours later with their breakfast and she vomited spectacularly over their brand-new bed-linen.

Her husband’s first reaction was to bellow for the butler to call for a doctor, then rush about in a fine panic as he dressed himself in the previous night’s clothing. By now the maid had whipped the thankfully unused chamber pot from under the bed and handed it to her mistress, along with a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand.

By the time the butler arrived and the household was in a complete frenzy, Una’s stomach had stopped rolling and the maid had removed the vile pot, replacing it with a cup of tea and a cool washcloth for her forehead.

“You’ll be alright, your Grace,” the maid had whispered as she whisked Una out of her spoiled nightrail and into a voluminous wrapper. “It was the same for my sister, and it all stopped after the first few months. It’s all natural, your Grace, don’t you worry.”

It took Una a few moments to process the woman’s kind words, as she was distracted by her husband loudly ordering every footman and groom in the building out on every horse in the stables to find every doctor in the county and drag them back here immediately.

“Christopher, do stop being an ass,” she said wearily. “I do not need a doctor.”

“But you were sick,” he said, dropping to one knee by the side of her chair and taking her hand between his. He stole a look at the ruined bed-linens. “Copiously so.”

“I rather believe that we must expect this to be the case most mornings for the foreseeable future,” Una said, a small smile playing on her lips.

It took her husband a regrettably long time to register what she was hinting at; had they been alone, she could have spoken more plainly, but by this point her husband’s voice, trained to be heard over the crashing of waves and thunder of cannon, had brought nearly every above-stairs member of staff crowding into their bedchamber. He threw discretion to the wind and grabbed her into a fierce hug, murmuring “A baby, a baby,” over and over again.

Gradually the butler shooed everybody out of the bedroom, and shut the doors gently behind him, giving them some privacy. Her husband acted as her lady’s maid that day, lacing her into her corset and tying her garters. He had the vaguely stunned look of a man who had run face-first into a wall, and kept staring at her midsection as if he expected it to balloon at any minute.

“You have made me incredibly happy,” he told her later that day, as they sat side by side in the morning room and began to talk of names for their future child. “I cannot think of anything that could spoil my mood today.”

Then the butler scratched at the door, handed the duke his post, and Una’s vague plans of a quiet, relaxed confinement went straight out of the nearest window.

[](http://tinypic.com?ref=a5c9kx)

 

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	2. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This section is image heavy. If that's not good for you there's an alternate version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/38775.html#cutid1) without the images.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 2400/50227  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This section is image heavy. If that's not good for you there's an alternate version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/38775.html#cutid1) without the images.

_Chapter Two: Where Lady Christine is outmanoeuvred by her mother_

Letter from the Duchess of Riverside to her mother, the Countess of Shrewsbury, 4th March 1815

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=20prp54)

 

Letter from the Countess of Shrewsbury, Shrewsbury House London, to her eldest daughter the Duchess of Riverside, Berkely Hall, Gloucestershire, 5th March, 1815.

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=1ileyq)

 

Letter from Lady Christine Chapel, Shrewsbury House, London to her elder sister the Duchess of Riverside, Berkely Hall, Gloucestershire, 6th March 1815

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=5vpqb8)

 

Letter from the Duchess of Riverside to her sister, Lady Christine Chapel, 8th March 1815

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=24zk77o)

 

Letter from Lady Christine Chapel, Shrewsbury House, London to her sister the Duchess of Riverside, Berkely Hall, Gloucestershire, 10th March 1815

[](http://tinypic.com?ref=t8t9pg)

 

“It won’t be so bad,” commiserated Christine’s father. “You have missed Una since she got married.”

“It’s only been three months,” Christine said through gritted teeth as she tied her bonnet ribbons more firmly under her chin. “And she writes every week. She doesn’t need me as a companion.”

The Earl of Shrewsbury sighed, and stepped to one side as a small team of footmen carried his younger daughter’s luggage to the carriage that waited outside the doors of Shrewsbury House.

“Your mama thinks it’s for the best,” he said, and Christine knew that was code for “I had no say in the matter.” She sighed and took pity on her father.

“I know, Papa, and it isn’t forever. And truly told, visiting Una and the Admiral is no hardship. At least I won’t be forced to attend any ridiculous society parties in the wilds of Gloucestershire.”

The earl nodded sympathetically; he attended as few social gatherings as he could get away with, being far more comfortable in the smoking room at Whites or at the library of the Royal Society.

“I got you a little present for the trip,” he confided, passing her a small leather-bound book. “Keep it hidden until you get in the carriage.”

“Thank you, Papa,” she said, passing the book immediately to her lady’s maid, who was hovering in the background, ostensibly keeping an eye on the loading of the baggage but really eyeing up the men who were loading it.

“What did you give her, Henry?” asked the Countess, sweeping down the large staircase of Shrewsbury House to say goodbye to her daughter.

“A book, my dear,” the Earl said hurriedly, stepping in front of Gaila so she could lose it in the voluminous folds of her cloak. “One of the new novels by that lady writer that your sister is so fond of.”

Gaila stepped forward and bobbed a curtsey, holding out a volume that looked distinctly different to the one she had just taken possession of.

“ _Mansfield Park_ ,” read the Countess, holding the novel at arm’s length and peering at the cover. She looked vaguely displeased, as if she had expected it to be something far more subversive.

“I thought it just the thing for a long journey,” the earl continued, winking at Christine.

The countess sniffed and held the book out imperiously. Gaila stepped forward, took the volume, bobbed another small curtsey and disappeared into the background.

“I have packed a few things for your sister,” the countess told Christine. “I hope that she may find them useful before long. Please ensure that you give them to her.”

“I will, Mama,” Christine said.

“Do try to enjoy yourself, my dear,” her mother told her. “Visiting your sister is not a chore.”

“I will, Mama,” Christine repeated.

The countess’ eyes narrowed.

“Don’t get into any mischief,” she warned her daughter. “You will be the guest of the Duke of Riverside, a great war hero, and you must not do anything to disrupt your sister’s dignity. Or your own,” she added.

“I promise, Mama.” Christine sighed.

“Then go and have a good time. Your father and I will come down for a visit in a month or two, once the first round of parties has subsided.”

The countess kissed Christine delicately on the cheek, and her father wrapped her up in a large bear-hug, wrinkling her pale green travelling dress and knocking her bonnet askew.

“Your brother sends his best wishes,” her mother added, as Gaila stepped forward to repair the damage her father had wrecked on her clothing. “He is currently...indisposed.”

“Andrew’s foxed,” muttered Christine.

“Cast up his accounts all over the corridor early this morning,” agreed her father, frowning.

“Will you two behave yourself?” hissed the countess. “ _Not_ in front of servants, if you do not mind.”

“Sorry, m’dear,” the earl said penitently, taking his wife’s hand and performing an elaborate bow.

The countess rolled her eyes fondly, the earl wriggled his eyebrows and Christine smiled. Her parents were one of a very rare breed; a love-match that had lasted the trials and tribulations of society life. No matter how absent-minded her father, or how conscious of her dignity her mother, they always found a way to live and love happily together. That was what Christine wanted for herself, and why she had turned down the four proposals she had garnered during her two seasons on the Marriage Mart. Her sister Una had provided an example also; madly in love with a minor baron from Gloucestershire who served in the royal navy, she had quietly and gently refused all offers for her hand until her sailor had come home a national hero, recently elevated to a dukedom and the rank of admiral. It was only then that he felt he could offer for her and provide with the home that she deserved.

If Una had been willing to wait for Christopher, and face the raised eyebrows of society ladies who saw her refuse several very advantageous matches, then Christine was sure that she could do the same. All she had to do was find a suitable man.

“You should be going if you’re going to reach your Aunt Augusta’s house this evening,” her mother instructed, looping her arm in Christine’s and escorting her to the courtyard at the front of the house where one of the family coaches was waiting for her. “I’ve packed a few things for her, as well. Do be sure to give them to her, won’t you?”

“I won’t forget,” Christine promised. “I’ll write as soon as I get to Gloucestershire.”

Her father descended the steps to kiss her goodbye and her mother repeated the gesture. Then Christine was handed into the carriage by one of the grooms who would be travelling with the party. Although trouble on the road to Gloucestershire was rare, it was not unheard of, and the earl had provided his daughter with several armed outriders as well as the services of his head coachman and a proud young tiger, who was currently perched happily on the luggage strapped to the back of the carriage.

Christine settled into the coach, waved goodbye to her parents and sighed heavily as the horses began to move off through the traffic of the town.

“You’re only going to Gloucestershire,” her altogether too precocious trainee lady’s maid pointed out. “Not the ends of the earth.”

“It may as well be,” Christine said gloomily. “What is there to do in Gloucestershire, compared to London? No lectures at the Royal Society, no tours of the British Museum, no Hatchards.”

“You’re not allowed into Hatchards,” Gaila pointed out to her reasonably. “You have to send Lord Andrew in to buy your books for you.”

“The point is, I will not even be able to do that in Gloucestershire,” Christine snapped. “And you’ll suffer too, because I won’t be able to buy any for you.”

Gaila pulled the small volume from her cloak that the earl had given her to hide.

“You may as well have this now,” she said. “If you’re going to be in a terrible mood all the way to your aunt’s house, you may as well be quiet.”

“You’re awfully forward for a lady’s maid,” Christine told her, not for the first time. Gaila shrugged, and smiled. “You’ll need to work on that if you want a position with one of the grand families.”

“If you think this is forward, my lady, you ought to have seen how I behaved in my previous line of work.”

“Gaila!” Christine said, the shock forcing her to smile. “I’m not supposed to know about your previous...occupation.”

“And that’s just as well,” Gaila told her archly. “Respectable ladies like you have no need to know. Not until you’re married anyway.”

She gave her mistress a saucy wink, and Christine laughed.

“Go on with you,” she said. “And you keep the book that my aunt loves so much.”

The red haired woman smiled, her emerald eyes flashing with joy. Gaila had been taught to read when she decided to leave the profession that Christine pretended to know nothing about, at the charitable institute set up by the very aunt that Christine was now going to break her journey with. She now devoured every book she could get her hands on. Christine had come back to her room early one day to change for dinner and had caught Gaila reading one of the novels stacked on her bedside table. Gaila had been fearful of losing her position for wasting her time reading a book that didn’t belong to her; Christine had been grateful that she had someone she could give the unwanted books to. Now she automatically passed every novel she could to Gaila, who would, in return, give her a précis of the book so that Christine could discuss it while paying calls without having to actually read it.

Christine loathed novels, preferring to read factual books – histories, biographies, and anything even remotely scientific in nature. Silence fell in the carriage as Christine opened the latest report of the work of Edward Jenner and got lost in admiration for the great man’s work with vaccination, and Gaila visited Mansfield Park.

“Well?” Christine asked, as the carriage pulled in at her aunt’s comfortable estate some hours later. “What do we think of it?”

“I don’t think much of the heroine,” Gaila sniffed. “She’s not a patch on Elizabeth Bennet.”

“And the hero?”

“He’s no Darcy, either. It’s certainly a good book, but I think Miss Austen will find it judged poorly against her other work.”

Christine nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. Look out, we’ve stopped.”

The coach had halted, and one of the grooms had opened the door and pulled down the step. Christine took his proffered hand and stepped down onto the gravel drive.

“Aunt Augusta! How pleasant to see you,” Christine said as she bobbed a curtsey to her aunt, and then kissed the cheek the older lady offered her.

“And you my dear, you grow prettier every time I see you. And O’Ryan is with you, I see. How is she faring as your maid?”

“I couldn’t ask for a better one,” Christine lied. Gaila certainly tried her hardest, but she had come into service comparably late in life, and still sometimes struggled with etiquette.

“I am so very glad,” her aunt sighed, linking her arm with Christine’s and leading her inside. “I do so worry when one of my girls leaves the Institute. You can never be sure what will happen to them.”

“O’Ryan is doing very well,” Christine said firmly. “How many more of your inmates have you been able to place, Aunt Augusta?”

“Six last month, eight the month before that,” the older lady said immediately. “We have high hopes of this month’s batch, and I have eleven to place. I don’t suppose you know of anybody looking for household help?”

“I will ask Una,” Christine told her, happy to drop her sister into the range of her aunt’s fire. “I am sure she could provide at least one place at Berkely Hall for one of your girls.”

“Of course!” cried Augusta, clapping her hands. “Now that the Admiral has taken Berkely Hall, she must be crying out for more staff. I’ll send word to London to forward details of some of the girls available for placement.”

The two women retreated to the drawing room for tea and cakes, before leaving to rest for an hour or two before dinner. Gaila had already unpacked and pressed an evening gown for Christine, and was supervising the filling of a bath with hot water supplied by some of the housemaids.

“How did you know that I would want a bath?” Christine asked as the housemaids curtseyed and left. Gaila made swift work of the fastenings of the green travelling dress and unlaced Christine’s corset deftly.

“Any excuse for a hot soak my lady, and you take it,” she said cheerfully. “I know that I could I could do with one,” she said archly.

Christine laughed as she sank into the hot water.

“I suppose you’ll want the water after I’m finished with it?” she asked as she soaped up one foot, then another.

“It would be a crime to waste it, after the housemaids here did carry it up all those stairs,” Gaila said in an off-hand manner.

“Lucky I do bathe so often, or you might not want it,” Christine teased.

“Bend forward and I’ll do your back,” Gaila told her, and started to scrub.

 

 

Dinner passed quietly; her aunt had only invited six others to dine, so it was a small party mostly interested in London gossip. Christine wracked her brain to think of interesting titbits, but luckily she had enough little nuggets of news to satisfy her aunt’s neighbours. The women were naturally interested in the latest fashions, but luckily the gentlemen didn’t linger for too long after dinner and their arrival in the drawing room pushed the scope of conversation further away from necklines and trims.

Her aunt kept country hours, so the party broke up at about the time when the day’s journey was catching up with Christine. She was grateful to find Gaila waiting for her with her night-rail and a banked fire. Gaila had her undressed and her hair unpinned in minutes, and it took her only a few moments more to lay out a suitable travelling dress for the next day, pack Christine’s evening wear away and tidy the room.

“Gaila, do you like working for us?” Christine asked sleepily. “Do you mind that I don’t call you O’Ryan? I keep forgetting. I’ve never had a maid of my own before.”

Gaila chuckled as she smoothed the covers of Christine’s bed,

“My lady, if you had seen my last place of employment, you would know that serving your family is nothing but a pleasure. And I know that real ladies maids should be called by their surnames, but I’m still training, and to be honest, I’ve never liked O’Ryan much anyway.”

A haunted look flashed over her beautiful face for a moment, but then she visibly shook herself.

“Enough chat now. It’s late and we still have a day’s travel ahead of us tomorrow. Go to sleep, Lady Christine.”

“G’night,” murmured Christine drowsily, and as Gaila extinguished the candles, she dropped into sleep.

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	3. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This fic has a lot of images. If that's no good for you there's a non-image version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/39325.html).

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 5956/52526  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This fic has a lot of images. If that's no good for you there's a non-image version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/39325.html).

_Chapter Three: In which James, Duke of Albany, is in love and Leonard, Earl of Arundel rolls his eyes a lot._

_Cannons thundered and the ship rocked violently, knocking McCoy off his feet. He swore viciously under his breath as he picked himself up and snatched up some of his fallen tools from the floor._

_“Can’t you keep this god damned rickety tub on an even keel?” he yelled at the ceiling of his cabin. The captain of the vessel would never be able to hear him over the crash of waves and the noise of the guns as they provided volley after volley of fire at the French ships, but it made McCoy feel better if he yelled aloud._

_Battle made him tense; no doubt there were wounded sailors all over the ship already, but none had made it to his rudimentary infirmary yet. That either meant that their wounds were too minor to worry about in the heat of battle, or too serious for him to do anything but dose the poor bastard with laudanum until he passed into the next world. He checked and rechecked his equipment as he waited to be of use to his crew._

_A strange whistling noise grabbed his attention, getting louder and louder. He spun about frantically, looking for the source of the disturbance when suddenly the wooden wall of the cabin split in front of his eyes and a huge weight hit him solidly in his chest and knocked him down to floor again._

 

“Papa!” cried a familiar voice. “Papa, wake up! I can whistle! Uncle Jim showed me how! Listen!”

Leonard McCoy’s eyes snapped open and he sucked in a reflexive lungful of air to replace the one his beloved daughter had knocked out by jumping onto his bed, straight onto his chest. He groaned and lifted Joanna onto the space to the side of him as she demonstrated the oddly piercing whistle that had interrupted his dream about life on the _Enterprise_.

“That’s nice, sweetheart,” he said, reaching out a large hand to tousle Joanna’s dark brown hair. “But what are you doing wandering the house in your nightclothes? At...” He peered at the bedside table in the morning gloom to find the time. “Half past five in the morning? You should still be in the nursery.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Joanna said, shrugging her little shoulders just as her mother used to when she was feeling truculent. “I wanted to make sure you were still here, Papa.”

McCoy’s gut twisted at hearing the barely concealed fear in her words. This was not the first time he had woken to find that Joanna had slipped into his bed, braving the unfamiliar corridors of the guest wing of Albany House in the dead of night to check that her father was still there. He couldn’t blame her; Jo had barely been old enough to know who he was when he had decided to take to the seas instead of sit across an increasingly frosty dining room table from her mother. At least in service to the king he could make use of the medical education his father had been so dead-set against him taking, as if the son of a minor baronet in the back end of nowhere was too good to learn how to save lives.

But he had not been at home to save the life of Joanna’s mother, or his own father, who had both perished in a smallpox outbreak while he had been at sea. He had not learned of their deaths until a year after the event; he had taken leave and raced home on the best horses his money could buy him to find his baby girl, now five years old, locked into the nursery wing of the home of an aged aunt. She had been living in near-poverty, despite his aunt’s abundance of funds, dirty, skinny and mistrustful of everybody, including the man who called himself her papa.

He had raged at the miserable old woman who had seen her great-niece merely as a way to extort money from a trust set up to provide for her, terrifying her into tears. He had been clutching Joanna to him, covering her filthy gown with his massive greatcoat, when she had smiled at him tremulously. It was the first time she had shown any emotion towards him other than fear, and he had fallen in love with his daughter all over again while breaking his heart that his neglect had caused her so much pain.

He had whisked Joanna back to London, where to his amazement he found his captain had pulled some strings within the Admiralty and brought their ship, _HMS Enterprise_ , back to London for an extensive period of dry dock repairs. They had been scheduled for a week’s turnaround; thanks to Captain Pike, McCoy had been able to spend three months with his daughter. He found a suitable guardian for Joanna in his best friend Jim’s mother. The Dowager Duchess of Albany had fallen in love with the scared, sullen little girl and had promised that she would see her well looked after in Albany House when her son and McCoy were called back to duty again.

By that point Joanna was just beginning to build a bond with her father; leaving her again had reduced him to tears that he had shed in the privacy of his small cabin, away from the stares of the crew and the pity of his best friend. He owed Pike, their ship’s captain, one more tour of two years’ service, and then that was it. He was retiring his commission and going back to taking care of his daughter and his land.

Their last tour of duty had seen some of the most ferocious battles against the navy of the mighty French Emperor Nero; the gigantic battle between his flagship, the _Nerada_ and the HMS _Enterprise_ became stuff of legend. Captain Pike had been wounded and fallen overboard; the First Lieutenant James Kirk had not only plunged recklessly into the sea to pull his commander out, but had then gone on to win the battle and destroy the _Nerada_.  
They had sailed home heroes. Pike had been promoted to Admiral, and as soon as his wounds from battle had healed, he had married his one true love, who had waited so patiently for him to return to her. He had been elevated to the rank of Duke, and granted one of the finest houses in the country from the Crown as thanks from a grateful nation.

McCoy’s best friend, Kirk, made on their first day at sea when McCoy realised that _mal-de-mer_ was going to be a worse enemy than the French, had decided that it was time for him to shoulder the responsibilities of his position and assume the running of the Albany estates.

Jim has been the fourth Duke of Albany from the day of his birth; his father, the third duke, had died just as he was born in a terrible storm at sea. He had drowned while trying to save some of the other passengers, and little James had grown up without knowing his father. He had joined the Royal Navy in a fit of youthful anger at the world, concealing his true identity. Captain Pike, who had been a mere midshipman on the same ship that had killed the third duke, recognised him immediately and brought him under his wing. Pike had been more like a father to Jim than anybody, and Jim both loved and respected him absolutely.

Jim had ended up on McCoy’s table days after they first shipped out, after taking a flying piece of wood to the shoulder during a skirmish with a French ship. Such wounds routinely caused infection, gangrene and eventual amputation, but McCoy’s skill had saved the arm of his new best friend. He had poured brandy down the boy’s throat to numb the pain of the extraction, but that just caused Jim to talk as McCoy tried to extract all the splinters.

“If you can save my arm,” he had slurred, “I’ll make you an earl. And not a paper one, a real one.”

“Sure,“ McCoy had muttered, dismissing it as the ravings of an inebriate. “Just let me get all the pieces out, you can sign the papers later.”

But to McCoy’s disbelief, Jim had dragged him to a lawyer during their first leave in port in Gibraltar, and had signed a document ceding the title of Earl of Arundel to him, along with all land, estates and monies associated with the title. It had taken Jim and the lawyer three hours to convince McCoy that Jim wasn’t joking, and he actually _was_ the fourth Duke of Albany, and another six for McCoy to agree to accept Jim’s generous offer.

McCoy had spent most of his time while on board the _Enterprise_ trying to get Jim to change his mind; somewhere along the line, they became steadfast friends.

How Jim, or more accurately, his mother, had got Prinny to go along with it McCoy had no idea whatsoever. But letters patent acknowledging him as the Earl of Arundel were awaiting him when he finally got back to England and Joanna, now delighted at the thought of being addressed as _Lady_ Joanna. A large London townhouse was part of the generous package of land and houses that came with the title, but it had been shut-up for years, and was in dire need of renovation. Since Joanna was already in residence at Albany House, McCoy had moved in with her, and part of the precarious rebuilding of their relationship was the intricate planning of their new home together.

“I promise that I won’t leave you again, sweetheart,” he told her, opening his arms.  
She scrambled into them, and he pulled the bedclothes up and over the both of them.  
“You’re cold,” he said accusingly. “You shouldn’t be wandering the halls in only your nightgown, Joanna. Ladies don’t do that.”

Joanna pulled a face.

“Ladies don’t do a lot of things,” she complained. “Uncle Jim said that ladies weren’t supposed to whistle, either, but he showed me how anyway.”

McCoy fought off a smile.

“I suppose it’s alright for a lady to whistle in the privacy of her own room,” he allowed. “ _If_ she promises to wear her dressing gown and slippers if she decides to walk about before the servants have laid the fires.”

“That sounds fair,” she agreed, and they spent the next half an hour trying to guess the tune the other was whistling, before a servant came in to light the fire in the grate, and McCoy returned Joanna to the nursery.

 

 

Letter to James, 4th Duke of Albany, Albany House, London from Admiral Christopher Pike, 10th March 1815, sent from his London club.

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=1z6ceo0)

 

 

“Good morning, your Grace,” McCoy said, nodding to the Dowager as he entered the breakfast room. “Good morning, Jim. Good morning Joanna.”

Joanna looked up from a pile of hot-house strawberries to wave a sticky hand at him. Although it was customary for children to eat in the nursery, the Dowager had taken to installing Joanna at the main table for all meals except those with guests. Jim didn’t mind, and McCoy loved every minute he could spend with his daughter. The Dowager sighed at McCoy fondly.

“How many times am I going to have to tell you to call me Winnie, Leonard?”

“At least once more, your Grace,” he said promptly, helping himself to bacon, sausages and eggs from the platters on the sideboard. A footman promptly poured him a cup of coffee, and another flapped open a napkin and laid it delicately across his thighs as soon as he sat down.

“So, my daughter tells me that you’ve been teaching her how to whistle,” McCoy said, frowning at his friend.

“Jo! That was supposed to be a secret!” Jim said, reaching out a finger to tickle her along the ribs.

“There should be no secrets between a parent and their child,” the dowager said firmly. “Joanna, you did the right thing.”

Joanna preened under the praise from the only grandmother she had ever known.

“I’m only going to whistle in my room, Grandmama,” she said solemnly. “Ladies don’t whistle in public.”

The dowager nodded, sneaking an amused look at Leonard.

“Quite right,” she agreed.

“Of course, I’m going to have to do that occasionally, when I’m walking Buttons. He might slip his leash, and he has to know when to come back to his mistress,” Joanna continued conversationally.

The three adults paused, and looked at each other. Two looked confused, and one looked guilty.

“Who is Buttons?” the dowager asked, a steely glare fixed upon her son.

“Buttons is the puppy that Uncle Jim promised to get me,” Joanna said happily. “ _That’s_ why I had to learn how to whistle, Papa, otherwise how will I get him to come back to me?”  
Jim had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Every child needs to have a dog,” he said firmly. “It’s positively cruel to be forced to grow up without one. And nobody is allowed to be cruel to Joanna, Bones. It’s against the law!”

“It’s not,” Joanna laughed, throwing a rare smile at her adopted uncle.

“It should be,” Jim told her, and Joanna smiled again.

That was all it took; Joanna’s smiles were precious to McCoy and anything that got his quiet little girl to come out of her shell was going to be given to her come hell, high water or the soft furnishings of Albany House.

“Perhaps we should wait until we’re in our own house, Jo,” he reminded her, courtesy towards his hosts rearing its ugly head. “Remember, we’re just guests here in Uncle Jim’s house.”

“Nonsense!” cried Jim, slapping his hand on the table. “If Lady Joanna wants a puppy, then she shall have a puppy.”

A quiet knock at the door announced the entrance of Miss Rand, Joanna’s governess. She was a small, delicately-boned blonde woman, young and demure. She had been engaged soon after Joanna had arrived at Albany House, and she had managed to coax Joanna out from her shell and into the classroom.

On her entrance to the room, Jim shot to his feet as if a footman had dumped a carafe of hot coffee into his lap. McCoy frowned; it was habitual to stand for the presence of a lady, but not a servant. Jim’s gesture of respect forced McCoy to get to his feet also.

“Good morning, your graces, your lordship. It is time for Lady Joanna’s lessons to begin,” Miss Rand said, blushing a little at Jim’s mysterious chivalry.

“What’s on the curriculum today?” McCoy asked as Joanna shovelled a few more strawberries down in a distinctly unladylike fashion.

“Mathematics, your lordship, and then some geography,” Miss Rand told him, carefully ignoring Jim, who was staring at her like a drowning man stares at a lifeboat. “And if the weather holds, a trip to the museum to visit some of the things we will have learned about.”

Joanna threw a sideways look at her governess at that announcement. McCoy was interested too.

“Will this be the Egyptian exhibit at the British museum?” he asked “I’ve been meaning to go myself.”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied. “I thought that Lady Joanna would be interested in seeing the Rosetta Stone and some real Egyptian statuary. I believe that there are some very pleasant images of dogs on display.”

The young woman’s words had the desired affect; Joanna put down her fork and scrambled to her feet.

“Let’s go, Miss Rand,” she said eagerly. “I want to see the Egyptian dogs!”

“After your mathematics,” warned her father, who had to fight back the urge to smile at his daughter’s dismay.

“A lady must be able to count, Joanna,” chimed in the dowager duchess.

“Very well,” sighed Joanna, resigned to her fate, and she left the room hand in hand with her governess.

As soon as the door shut softly behind them, the dowager duchess sighed and addressed her son.

“James, _please_ stop staring at Miss Rand like that. She is a respectable young woman and I would hate to have to let her go because you cannot act like a gentleman.”

“ _Mother_!” Jim stuttered, obviously mortified.

“When you remember the trouble I had keeping housemaids when you were fifteen,” the dowager continued ruthlessly, “you will understand why I am desirous that Miss Rand remains unmolested while in this house.”

She laid aside her half eaten piece of toast and rose from the table, keeping her son in her sights with a steady gaze.

“I mean it, James,” she warned.

A footman hurried to open the door for her, and she sailed through it imperiously.

“Well,” Jim began, then realised he had nothing to follow his mother with.

“I’d like to add my wish that you don’t go sniffing around my only daughter’s obviously virginal governess,” McCoy added. “She’s very important to Joanna, and if she was forced to leave Jo would be heartbroken.”

“I wish people would credit me with a modicum of sense,” Jim said irritably. “I’m not about to take advantage of Joanna’s governess.”

“See that you don’t,” sniffed McCoy.

The two men turned their attention to their breakfasts, and silence reigned. The door opened to admit the butler, who had several letters arranged on a silver salver.

“The post, your Grace,” he announced, then slipped effortlessly away.

Jim frowned as he flipped through the stack of cards and envelopes.

“Ball, ball, ball, country house party, request for a charitable donation, ball, ball, hello, what’s this? I recognise that handwriting.”

He used his breakfast knife to break the seal, ignoring the wince of the footman hovering discreetly opposite him. Jim scanned the brief contents of the letter, a smile on his face.

“I’ve been summoned by the Admiral, Bones!”

McCoy, ignoring the nickname Jim had given him as soon as he had recovered from the shoulder wound, raised an eyebrow.

“Summoned where, exactly? Is he recalling you to duty? I thought he retired. I thought _you_ retired. ”

“Down to Gloucestershire. He doesn’t say why, exactly, just some blather about importance to the nation.”

An unholy gleam took up residence in Jim’s eyes, and McCoy could see his carefully planned week of talking with architects about the restoration of Arundel House disappear out of the window as he would no doubt get caught up in whatever mad-cap idea Jim was having right now.

Oddly, he didn’t seem to mind very much.

Although he was positive he’d never set foot on another man o’war, he had found that the sedentary life of an aristocrat was far more boring than he’d ever imagined. Estate business took up a portion of his day; the title of Earl of Arundel brought with it a shockingly large amount of farmland in Sussex and an actual, honest-to-God _castle_ , which seemed to be on the verge of falling down if the reports regarding on-running repairs were accurate. McCoy had kept the castle secret from Joanna; he wasn’t sure if he could take the amount of squealing that the revelation would produce. However, McCoy had been brought up to run a simple estate in hilly Northumberland, where sheep outnumbered crops fifty to one. He had sensibly hired an estate manager as soon as the shock of the title had worn off, and now left the day to day running of his holdings to a man that actually understood what was required of him.

That dealt with, only social events were left to fill his day, and although he could dance adequately and hold his end of a conversation up, the thought of filling the entire Season with nothing but empty headed chat from even emptier headed ladies was something that made his stomach turn.

As a widowed wealthy earl, McCoy was something of a catch, despite his somewhat eccentric behaviour in shipping out with the fleet as a surgeon. Mamas all over London had him in their sights as a potential match for their daughters, with Jim, as an unmarried duke and worth ten times McCoy’s fortune, being the greatest matrimonial prize of all.

No wonder the thought of a trip to Gloucestershire was making Jim excited.

“I’ll write to the Admiral directly,” Jim said, jumping up and heading for the door. “And tell him we’ll be down immediately.”

“Hold up, Jim, what about Jo?” McCoy said hurriedly. “She came looking for me again this morning. I can’t just dump her on your mother and head off down to Gloucestershire.”

Jim paused in the doorway.

“Jo’s coming with us,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I wouldn’t leave her behind, Bones.”  
McCoy nodded, and Jim left the room to answer the Admiral’s letter.

Letter from James, 4th Duke of Albany, Albany House, London to Admiral Lord Christopher Pike, 11th March 1815, sent first to the club then redirected to Gloucestershire.

 

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2vs46xz)

 

McCoy sipped his cooling coffee and thought about heading up to the nursery to inform Miss Rand that she and her charge would be heading down to Gloucestershire for a few weeks. If she was planning on taking Jo to the museum, she’d have to do it very soon.

It was only as McCoy was headed up the stairs to the top of the house that he realised that Jim, with the proposed trip, would be smuggling the estimable Miss Rand out from the influence of his mother, down away to a very large house where she would know nobody except Joanna and, of course, her employer and his lunatic ducal friend.

He stamped irritably down the corridor to the schoolroom, vowing that he wouldn’t allow the blue-eyed idiot the chance to ruin the reputation of an intelligent and respectable young woman. He paused before entering the room; the door was ajar, and he could watch the activity in the room without being seen by either the governess or her charge.

Miss Rand was handling the issue of multiplication this morning, a tricky subject for Joanna who was not as confident with mathematics as she was with reading. McCoy had been insistent that any governess of Joanna give her a thorough grounding in arithmetic as well as drawing and sewing and whatever nonsense young misses had their heads stuffed full of. He had talked to enough society ladies to know that no daughter of his was going to enter the world with only a knowledge of watercolours between her and pure idiocy.

Miss Rand, during her interview, had listened gravely to his requirements for a governess and had nodded.

“I agree entirely, your lordship,” she had said quietly, but firmly. “My father was of the same opinion. I was educated with my brothers, and shared their tutors. You will find my mathematics of a high standard, as is my Latin and Greek. I make it a point to stay abreast of current scientific matters, and I would expose Lady Joanna to suitable scientific enquiry for her age.”

She had smiled at him then, turning a pretty face into a beautiful one.

“But Lady Joanna is five, my lord. I expect that she will be more interested in drawing rainbows than experimenting with refracted light.”

If it wasn’t for the fact it would have been completely inappropriate, and the dowager, who was sitting in the corner would have walloped him with a fire-iron, McCoy would have taken Miss Rand in her arms and kissed her. Not only did she know of Newton, but she could joke about his work? She was perfection.

Joanna, after a few days, had thought so too. His little girl had soon taken to her new governess, and her conversation was peppered with “Miss Rand said...” and “Miss Rand believes...”. Now Joanna was seven, and Miss Rand had lived in Albany House for two years.

From his vantage point at the door, McCoy could see Miss Rand patiently explain to Joanna the basic tenets of multiplication using, of all things, puppies.

“Now, if a mother dog has six puppies, and one is given to a young lady called Joanna, how many puppies are left?”

“Five!” Joanna said immediately, giggling.

“Very good,” Miss Rand said, smiling. “Now if the mother dog has six puppies every year, and every year one puppy is given to Lady Joanna, how many puppies will the mother dog have at the end of two years?”

McCoy watched Joanna scowl in thought.

“Would you like to use your slate to help you?” asked the governess.

Joanna nodded, picking up a piece of chalk and concentrate hard, making marks on the slate.

“Ten puppies!” she said eventually, after rubbing some marks from the slate. “And I would have two,” she added.

“Very good,” Miss Rand repeated. “Now, how many puppies would there be at the end of three years?”

McCoy watched as Joanna was coaxed through her five times table. She soon saw the pattern, and was answering confidently without using her slate.

“I am not sure that Papa would let me have ten dogs, Miss Rand,” Joanna giggled at the end of their question and answer session.

“Indeed, I would not,” McCoy said, taking this as a cue to enter. “One dog, I think, is enough for a young lady.”

“Papa!” Joanna said, jumping up. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here to deliver news, baby girl,” he said, nodding to Miss Rand, who rose from her position on the floor with Joanna and her slate and headed towards her desk.

“What news?” Joanna asked suspiciously. “Are you going away again?”

She clutched at him unconsciously, and the sight of her little hands on his wrist made his heart lurch a little.

“No, sweetheart, I told you. No more trips away without you. In fact, this time you’re coming with me.”

“I am?” Joanna asked.

“You are,” McCoy said. “Miss Rand, also.”

“Where are we going?” Joanna asked, beginning to sound excited.

“To the home of a man that your Uncle Jim and I know and respect very well. I told you about him. Do you remember me mentioning Admiral Pike?”

Joanna thought for a moment, and nodded.

“He was the captain of your ship, and then he got hurt, and Uncle Jim saved his life and won the battle and then you came home.”

He didn’t need to work out which fact was the most important to Joanna.

“Well, Admiral Pike has asked Uncle Jim to come and see him, and Uncle Jim has asked us to go with him.”

“Where?” Joanna asked.

“To his house in Gloucestershire. Do you know where that is?”

Joanna slipped down off his knee and ran to a bookshelf. Miss Rand helped her to secure a large volume, and she brought it back to her father. It was an atlas, and together father and daughter located both London and Gloucestershire on the map.

“I do not like the spelling of Gloucestershire, Papa,” Joanna said eventually. “It has too many letters in it.”

McCoy smiled, and dropped a kiss to her forehead.

“It is oddly spelt,” he agreed.

“Do you think Admiral Pike has a dog?” Joanna asked, and McCoy rolled his eyes. Clearly, the dog phase was not going to be dropped any time soon.

“I would imagine that there will be some dogs on his estate, yes,” McCoy offered. “But they might be working dogs, Joanna, not pets.”

“We shall see,” Joanna said firmly, and that was the end of that. McCoy fervently hoped that one of Pike’s bitches had whelped a litter, and that he could be persuaded to part with a dog that looked like it could live with the moniker of Buttons.

“I think that we will probably leave tomorrow,” McCoy told Miss Rand. “So if your lessons included a trip to the museum, you should probably plan to do that today.”

Miss Rand nodded.

“As the atlas is already out, we will proceed with our geography lesson about Egypt, and take a trip to the museum after our luncheon.”

“I will not disturb you further, Miss Rand,” McCoy told her. “Learn lots of interesting things to tell me later, Joanna.”

“I will,” Joanna promised, and then abandoned his lap to go and sit at a desk where Miss Rand had already laid out paper and pencils.

“Now, Egypt is a country in the continent of Africa, Lady Joanna, and has a very long history. To start with, we’re going to draw the country from the atlas. Can you find the page with Africa on it?”

McCoy left Joanna to her exploration of Africa, and headed back downstairs to alert his valet that he would need to pack for an extended stay. However, the well-oiled team of staff at Albany House had already swung into motion and he found his valet, a footman on loan from Jim, already packing a trunk.

McCoy nodded to the man, who looked up expectantly for orders.

“Carry on,” was all McCoy could say, and the man nodded and resumed his work. McCoy wandered aimlessly down towards the library, then abruptly changed his mind. If he was to spend God only knew how long in the country, then he’d need new reading material. He called for a horse to be brought around, and decided to go and spend an hour or so in Hatchards. The last time he had been there the clerk had told him that they were expecting the publication by Edward Jenner to be ready soon. McCoy was anxious to read it, and recalled with the pleasure the fact that the man lived in Gloucestershire. Perhaps the trip to visit Pike would allow for contact with the man himself.

He not only found a copy of the report by Jenner, but several other medical texts he was eager to read. A quick visit to the small collection of shelves intended for children found some books for Joanna, and then a collection of that Austen woman’s novels caught his eye and he immediately thought of Jim, who was very much enamoured of them. The clerk promised that they would be delivered immediately, and McCoy was on his way back to the house in a much better mood than when he had left. So good a mood, that when he noticed a particularly fine doll in the window of a toy shop, he dismounted and bought it, along with a carved wooden dog, which had wheels instead of feet, and a long leash that would loop around a childish hand.

The doll he ordered to be boxed up properly and delivered to Albany House, but he asked for the dog to be merely wrapped in paper and tied with string, and he balanced it carefully on the saddle in front of him. Joanna could wait for the doll, but he wanted to see the look on her face when he presented her with the dog as soon as he could.

He arrived back at the house just as Miss Rand and Joanna were ready to leave for their visit to the British Museum. Joanna was fidgeting as Miss Rand did up her coat, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement.

“Papa!” she said loudly, as he dismounted and nodded his thanks to a groom who had arrived to take his horse. “We’re going to the museum to see the pharaohs! That means king in Egyptian! What’s that under your arm?”

Her sharp eyes had noted the parcel immediately.

“It’s a present for young ladies that are polite and apply themselves to their studies,” he teased. “Miss Rand, has Lady Joanna worked hard today?”

“Very hard, your lordship,” she replied, smiling. “She has learned five facts to tell you about Egypt.”

“Then she must tell me also, for I am shockingly bad at geography,” said a familiar voice. “If it wasn’t for a talented crew, I would have sailed straight to the East Indies instead of Great Britain.”

“Uncle Jim, you’re teasing,” laughed Joanna.

“No indeed! Tell her Bones, tell her how shockingly bad at geography I am.”

Jim was dressed in his smartest clothes, and had changed his cravat since McCoy had last seen him disappear into his study. McCoy’s eyes narrowed.

“I am afraid to tell you that your Uncle Jim is indeed, most foolish,” he said pointedly. “For example, he has got lost on the way to his study, and has ended up in the courtyard.”

“Miss Rand is very good at geography,” Joanna said proudly, taking her governess’ hand. “Maybe she could teach you, Uncle Jim.”

“What a very good idea, Jo. She can start by teaching me all about Egypt with you at the museum,” Jim said brightly as a carriage rolled around from the stables.

Miss Rand’s eyes darted between McCoy and Jim, and she took a step backwards, an uneasy look on her face. McCoy rolled his eyes heavenwards. He truly could not leave Jim alone for a second.

“We will all go,” McCoy said firmly, opening the carriage door and extending a hand to Miss Rand to escort her into the carriage. “It sounds like a most informative trip.”

McCoy caught the look of relief that flashed quickly across Miss Rand’s face, and the look of regret that flashed across Jim’s. McCoy lifted Joanna into the carriage, and passed her the parcel to keep her occupied. As Jim moved to enter the carriage, McCoy took him by the arm and moved him out of earshot of the occupants of the carriage and the grooms attending the horses.

“You promised me that you’d leave Miss Rand alone,” McCoy hissed, not dropping Jim’s arm.

“I am not doing anything wrong,” Jim spluttered. “I just wanted to see the exhibition, that’s all. It’s all anybody’s talking about. You said yourself you wanted to go and see it this morning at breakfast.”

“And so you decide to go with a child and her governess?”

“Going anywhere with Jo is fun and you know it,” Jim countered, and McCoy knew he was right. Jim adored her only slightly less than McCoy himself did, and had often included himself on trips McCoy organised with Jo.

“Just be careful,” McCoy told him. “Scandal for you is just a joke, but any hint of impropriety for Miss Rand will damage her reputation beyond repair.”

Jim looked incredibly serious.

“I know that Bones, I’m not an idiot.”

They were interrupted by delighted squeals from Joanna.

“A dog, a dog! Papa, you bought me a dog!”

Jim grinned at McCoy, the tension broken.

“Don’t tell me you wrapped a puppy in brown paper, Bones. That’s positively barbaric!”

“It’s wooden, you ass,” McCoy sighed, loosening his grip on his friend’s arm and heading back towards the carriage. “Like your brain.”

 

Letter to James, 4th Duke of Albany from Admiral Christopher Pike, 13th March 1815, sent to Albany House, London

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=2u41pua)

 

[ ](http://www.drdating.com/)  
---  
[dating advice](http://www.drdating.com/dating/advice/)


	4. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This fic has one image. If that's no good for you there's a non-image version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/39875.html).

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 3651/54613  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This fic has one image. If that's no good for you there's a non-image version [here](http://tobinfic.livejournal.com/39875.html).

_Chapter Four: Where Lady Christine comtemplates a title change and Lord Arundel becomes a gooseberry._

The journey from her aunt’s house to Berkely Hall was not a long one, and Christine spent the time in the carriage reading the book her father had given her. Some of it she didn’t understand, given that she lacked a medical background, but the parts of it she did understand were fascinating. She made a note to ask her father to get hold of some basic medical texts for her, although he’d have to disguise them as romantic novels if they were to get past her mother’s beady eyes.

Gaila began to fuss over Christine’s appearance as soon as the gates at the end of the long gravel drive were swung open for her carriage. It took a good five minutes for the carriage to get to the top of the meandering drive, as it banked left and right through an avenue of ancient oak trees. Christine, fighting for space at the window with Gaila, gasped as the house itself came into view. Gaila let out a low whistle of appreciation.

“That isn’t a house,” Gaila said, eyes canted upwards to take in the full height of the many towers and crenellations. “This is....this is like Westminster Abbey.”

Berkely Hall did share some features with the famous London abbey, Christine conceded.

“It was an abbey, until that syphilitic toad Henry VIII got his greedy paws on it,” she told her maid. “But I gather since then, every owner had built something on to it – a new wing, a new tower, a stable block or five. It’s quite the largest private home in the country, excepting royal residences, of course.”

“I bet it’s a bugger to clean,” Gaila muttered, and Christine agreed with her, although she did reprimand her about her less-than genteel language.

Then the doors of the house opened and Una and Christopher came out, the admiral still walking with a slight limp. They were followed by their butler and half a dozen footmen, all uniformly tall and stately in their livery.

“Be on your best behaviour,” Christine warned Gaila. “Mama will find out somehow. She always does.”

“On my honour,” Gaila promised, chuckling and Christine rolled her eyes to the heavens.

The door to the carriage was opened, the steps laid down and one of the Berkely footmen offered a spotlessly white-gloved hand to her to aid her descent. As soon as her boots had touched the gravel Una ran to her and swept her up in a hug.

“Oh Chrissie, I am _so_ glad you are here,” Una told her, squeezing her firmly.

“Then I am glad to be here,” Christine told her, laughing. Such an emotional greeting from her sister was quite unusual; Una usually had a much better rein on her emotions than this.

“My dear, let your sister breathe,” a gentle but firm masculine voice said over the commotion of the horses and the unloading of trunks.

Una let Christine go, and her brother in law stepped forward to take his wife’s place.

“I thank you for coming,” he said gravely, stepping back. “I fear that we have plans to put you to work during your stay, Christine.”

“And here I was thinking that I would be cooling my heels and rusticating in the countryside,” Christine laughed. “Put me to work, Admiral, make some use of me.”

“Come inside and have some tea,” Una urged, linking arms with her sister. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. How is Mama?”

“As strident as ever,” Christine replied, walking with her sister up the grand steps of the entrance way and into the vast receiving hall of the house.

“And Papa?”

“As fit as a flea, and happy that he has found a new hiding place in the library of Somerset House.”

The sisters laughed as Una guided Christine through a maze of corridors. Ahead of them footmen flung open the doors as they approached, and the butler himself saw them seated in a small, pleasantly-decorated parlour with a healthy fire in the grate.

“We will take tea please, Roddenberry,” Una instructed. “I have no doubt that sitting in a carriage doing nothing has made my sister famished, so will you have Cook send up some sandwiches and some of those delicious ginger biscuits she made this morning? Not too much, it won’t be long before we’ll need to dress for dinner.”

“Of course, your Grace,” the butler said with a short bow, before leaving the room and closing the doors soundlessly behind him.

Christine raised an expressive eyebrow at her sister.

“I still can’t quite get used to thinking of you as a duchess,” she told her.

“ _I_ still can’t quite get used to that,” Una said with a smile. “I thought I was going to be mistress of a small house in a smaller village, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Now every morning I wake up to find myself in this architectural monstrosity. Do you know I got lost three times yesterday, looking for the privy? If it wasn’t for the footmen I’d still be wandering around the north wing somewhere.”

“You are happy, aren’t you?” Christine asked, suddenly unsure. “You waited so long to marry Christopher, and then very quickly you were a wife, and a duchess.”

“And soon to be a mother,” Una said, smiling broadly.

Christine’s eyes widened in shock.

“Really? Oh Una! Congratulations!”

She rushed to hug her sister, who looked incredibly pleased with herself.

“When?” Christine asked, looking at her sister.

“The midwife I’ve spoken to guesses in half a year, although she cannot predict a precise date. Sometime in September.”

“So that is why you didn’t want to come back to Town?”

Una nodded.

“Christopher and I wanted to spend some time alone with each other before the baby arrives.”  
Christine frowned.

“Then why agree to have me foisted upon you?”

Una grimaced.

“You weren’t _foisted_ ,” she corrected her younger sister. “You are always welcome at Berkely, and you know it. It’s just that Christopher received a summons from the Prince Regent some weeks ago, and has been asked to perform a service for the Crown.”

“He’s not going back to sea!” Christine protested indignantly. “He retired!”

“No,” Una sighed. “Nothing like that, thank goodness. The Prince Regent has asked Christopher to host several visiting dignitaries who are here for some secret reasons that I don’t quite understand. They cannot be seen in London, apparently, so they will stay here, while Christopher attends to matters of state as a representative of the Crown.”

“Gosh,” said Christine, impressed. “Christopher must be very highly thought of.”

“Of course,” Una said proudly, and not without a slight air of smugness. “And if matters were different, I would be able to play hostess without any help. But so far my pregnancy has not been entirely easy, and I become so very tired in the afternoons.”

“I understand,” Christine said immediately. “And you have my full support. What can I do to help?”

Roddenberry entered then, with a footman who carried a tea-tray groaning with delicious sandwiches, warm biscuits, slices of home-made sponge cake and other sundry delights.

“Good grief, Roddenberry, Cook must think that I’m wasting away!” Christine said as the butler handed her a delicate china plate, and offered her the salver of sandwiches.

“His Grace’s orders, my lady,” was all that Roddenberry had to say on the subject. Una sighed, and helped herself to some salmon sandwiches.

“I find it difficult to eat very much in the mornings,” Una told her sister, who had already polished off two sandwiches and was making inroads in a third. “Christopher seems to think that I am wasting away, so he has the staff lurking throughout the house armed with food. The minute I sit down anywhere, somebody is waving a plate under my nose.”

“I think it is very romantic,” Christine decided.

“I’ll be the size of one of his ships,” Una muttered, looking sideways at the pile of biscuits. Roddenberry leapt on them immediately and piled four of them onto her plate.

“Thank you Roddenberry, that will be all,” Christine told him, and he bowed again before leaving, taking the footman with him.

“This child will emerge looking like a biscuit,” Una sighed. “But they seem to be about all I can keep down. I don’t know what Cook puts in them.”

“So, tell me more about these guests of yours,” Christine said, helping herself to a large slice of cake. “Who are they?”

“There are four of them. One we know already; you remember mother’s school friend, Lady Amanda?”

Christine paused in her chewing to recollect.

“She married a foreigner, didn’t she? Some crown prince of a far-off land?”

“She did,” Una agreed, sipping her tea. “Crown Prince Sarek, of Vulcania.”

Christine wrinkled her nose delicately.

“I’m not sure I could live in Vulcania,” she said thoughtfully. “The climate is abominable.”

“Her Royal Highness seems to like it,” Una shrugged. “She never complains of it in her letters to Mama. Her son was educated in England, and serves as ambassador to the Court of St James from Vulcania.”

“Spock!” Christine said, remembering. “I danced with him several months ago, at the Embassy ball.”

“Well he is here to represent Vulcania at these talks, and I gather also to help encourage the other nations around to our way of thinking. Christopher speaks most highly of him.”

“He was...cordial,” Christine said, trying to find the correct word. “Not exactly brimming with _bonhomie_.”

“It is the Vulcanian way of raising a child,” Una said thoughtfully. “It does not encourage over familiarity.”

“And the others?” Christine asked.

“A representative of the Tsar, one of his cousins, an Imperial Archduke,” Una told her. “Apparently he’s frightfully young, but incredibly clever.”

“Very exalted company,” Christine said.

“It gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view. There’s another Imperial prince, although this one is a representative of the Chrysanthemum Throne.”

Christine’s eyes widened. “From Japan?”

Una nodded.

“Apparently there has been a shift in imperial politics, and they have sent one of their junior family members out into the world to forge alliances.”

“How exciting,” breathed Christine. “I would love to converse about the Orient with a real Japanese prince!”

“There’s still another guest,” Una told her sister. “Her Royal Highness, the Princess Nyota Uhura of the Alliance of Western Africa.”

Christine’s tea-cup slipped from her fingers and she tipped cool liquid across the front of her dress, but she did not notice the stain forming on the pale-blue fabric.

“An African princess?” she said, clutching her sister’s hand. “A real one?”

“Yes,” Una said, picking up a napkin and dabbing at the stain on Christine’s clothes. “She is the representative of several nations all ruled by women from the same royal blood.”

“A matriarchy?” asked Christine.

“Very much so,” Una replied, scowling and discarding the cloth. “Christine, this dress is ruined.”

“Oh bother the dress,” Christine replied, batting her sister’s hands away. “A ruling princess! How thrilling!”

“I don’t think she’s the actual ruler of any of the countries,” her sister corrected. “But she is related to the women that do.”

“I still think that it’s thrilling,” Christine told her sister. “I simply cannot wait to meet them!”

“You may find yourself playing hostess too often to be excited by the prospect,” warned her sister. “They are here for some political reasons that I have not been informed about, and may well be difficult guests.”

“They do speak English, don’t they?” Christine asked, worriedly.

“I have been assured that they do, although apparently their grasp of the language is not always total. Her Royal Highness is the most fluent of the speakers; apparently she speaks twenty languages!”

“Twenty?” asked Christine, impressed. “She must be a formidable lady.”

“Christopher says that she is as beautiful as she is clever; he met her mother, the Queen, once while in service and the princess acted as translator.”

“We will be unequal numbers at dinner,” Christine said, her mind tracking ahead. “Four gentlemen and three ladies. I suppose you cannot make up the numbers with local guests?”

“No,” sighed Una. “Their presence here must be kept as quiet as possible, although what the villagers will think of retinues of Japanese and African servants riding through I do not know. And actually Christine, we will be six gentlemen at dinner, not four.”

“Who are the other two?” Christine asked, puzzled.

“Christopher felt that was in need of assistance, so he has called in some favours with somebody else we know.”

Christine smiled.

“Not Jim?” she asked.

Una nodded, looking thoughtful.

“Jim is coming to aid Christopher, and he is bringing his friend, the Earl of Arundel, with him.”

“I do not believe I have met the earl,” Christine said. “Isn’t Arundel one of Jim’s titles?”

“It was,” Una said succinctly, and went on to tell the tale of the earl’s rapid rise amongst the aristocracy.

“Well, it will be good to see Jim again,” Christine said when her sister was finished. “I have not seen him in an age. He never goes to any parties that I am invited to.”

“You know, there was a time when you two were younger when Mama and the Dowager Duchess thought that you may be a match,” Una told her sister.

“Oh, we knew all about that,” laughed Christine. “But we would never suit, and we both knew it. He is too wild and impetuous for me.”

“Handsome though,” prodded her sister.

“To be sure,” laughed Christine. “That is undeniable. But having a handsome husband is no good if you spend most of your married life wishing to strangle him. Besides,” she finished, squeezing her sister’s hand. “There’s only room for one duchess in the family, and you have that position all sewn up.”

Christine waited until her sister had raised her cup to her lips before adding, “But perhaps there’s space for an imperial princess?”

She squealed with glee as Una spat out a mouthful of tea over the front of her own gown, and gave Christine a baleful look.

“Oh it’s going to be _wonderful_ having you around for the summer, I can tell,” grumbled her sister.

Christine smiled, and rang the bell for more tea, and more napkins.

 

Letter from Lady Joanna McCoy to the Dowager Duchess of Albany, 15th Match 1815

[ ](http://tinypic.com?ref=es2mn9)

 

Why Jim insisted on travelling inside the coach, McCoy would never know. He had a perfectly good horse, which was currently being ridden by his valet, Scott, several yards behind their carriage. Behind the ducal carriage came the carriage with their servants and luggage, which by rights was where Miss Rand should have ridden. However, McCoy knew that a long carriage journey with a child was not going to be easy and Miss Rand could help stave off Joanna’s inevitable boredom.

McCoy could only guess why Jim had decided not to gallop on ahead, riding like a lunatic as he usually did, and the reason was blonde, softly spoken and currently engaged in reading a fairy tale to Joanna, who was nodding off to sleep with the rhythmical bounce of the carriage springs.

The Albany coach was unlike any other in London; Scott, Jim’s valet, was something of an inventor and had fiddled with the coach in such a way that even a country road with enormous potholes did not inconvenience travellers inside the carriage. Many coaches now had springs, but no ride was as smooth as that of the Albany coach. McCoy was glad of it for Joanna’s sake; being the smallest and lightest in the carriage, she would have been rattled around like a pea in a pod in a conventional coach.

McCoy took out a small notebook and pencilled in a note to ask Scott to look over the carriage he would buy when he moved to Arundel house.

Miss Rand finished her story, and manoeuvred Joanna, still clutching her wooden dog, to lie down on the seat. Joanna was soundly asleep, and McCoy stared happily at the face of his daughter, with her rosebud mouth and delicate nose.

“You certainly have a talent for story-telling, Miss Rand,” Jim said quietly, as not to wake Joanna. “That was as fine a telling of _Snow White and Rose Red_ as I ever heard.”

“Thank you, your Grace,” Miss Rand replied, stowing Joanna’s book away in her bag and bringing out a smaller volume.

“What’s that?” Jim asked.

“Oh, only a silly novel, your Grace,” Miss Rand replied, looking a little embarrassed. “Just a pass-time, nothing at all serious.”

“Oh good,” said Jim. “I do enjoy a good silly story. Tell me Miss Rand, have you read _Miss Butterworth And The Mad Baron_?”

“I am sad to say that I have, your Grace,” Miss Rand replied, smiling almost in spite of herself. “I was going to set it aside, but then the author mentioned a character...”

“Getting pecked to death by pigeons, yes I know!” Jim beamed, finishing her sentence for her.  
“After that, I just had to keep reading,” Miss Rand explained. “I wanted to know if that was the most ridiculous part of the book.”

“Oh not by a long shot!” Jim replied eagerly. “My favourite part was when the mad baron was chasing her across the heath and he was savaged to death by a herd of impassioned, murderous sheep. That was truly ridiculous.”

Miss Rand laughed, a pleasant, infectious sound.

“I must admit, your Grace, that I never imagined a sheep could be impassioned, let alone murderous. It was truly the most asinine plot development I have ever come across. It was wonderful.”

“There is something to be said for a truly bad novel,” agreed Jim. “They make you appreciate the good ones all the more. Have you read _The Mysteries of Udolpho_ , by Mrs Radcliff?”

“I have, although I must admit that my taste for gothic novels had diminished slightly ever since I read _Northanger Abbey_ by Miss Austen.”

Jim chuckled.

“She did hit the nail on the head well with that one, didn’t she?”

“I believe her to be one of the finest writers of the moment,” ventured Miss Rand, which caused Jim to turn the full force of the notorious Kirk smile on her. She bore the brunt of it well, McCoy noted, but she did start to turn somewhat pink around the edges.

“That reminds me,” McCoy interrupted, rummaging in a bag he had stowed under the bench. “I was in Hatchards before we left London, and I picked you up a present, Jim.”

He pulled out the small parcel of books and presented them to Jim, who whipped off the paper immediately.

“Bones!” he said jovially. “What an excellent present! See, Miss Rand,” he said, turning to show the young woman his prize. “Every volume of Miss Austen’s work to date, in matched bindings. Which is your favourite, Miss Rand?”

“I find it hard to choose, your Grace, but I do own a partiality towards _Sense and Sensibility_.”

“And are you a Marianne, or an Elinor?” Jim asked in a light, teasing tone.

“I would hope that I am not as foolish as Marianne, your Grace,” she replied carefully. “Although, I do not think that I have the strength of character to be Elinor.”

“Marianne lived for love, Bones,” explained Jim, turning to his friend. “You must excuse his lordship, he had no taste in literature at all,” he told Miss Rand, turning back to her and winking at her. She did her best not to smile at McCoy’s expense.

“Marianne falls in love with a rogue called Wickham...”

“Willoughby, your Grace,” Miss Rand interrupted, and then visibly blanched at the thought of correcting a duke.

“That’s right, Willoughby, Wickham’s _Pride and Prejudice_ , anyway, Marianne falls in love with him, but he abandons her to marry some rich chit instead, absolutely breaking her heart,” Jim explained, not at all bothered at the thought of being corrected by a governess. “While her sister, Elinor, is in love with an absolute bore of a man called Ferrars, but he is already engaged to a fright of a woman who befriends Elinor. And instead of kicking up a fuss, she tries to do the decent thing and keep her love to herself while dealing with Marianne’s emotional mess.”

“Sounds thrilling,” McCoy said dryly.

“No Bones, it is,” Jim insisted. “Miss Austen is immensely talented, and very sharp. I believe you would like her very much.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick to my medical books all the same,” McCoy said, brandishing his copy of Jenner. “Less heartache, believe it or not.”

Miss Rand smiled at his joke, and turned her attention to the window. Because of that, she missed the love-struck look that Jim sent her from the other side of the carriage. McCoy didn’t miss it, however, and extended his leg to kick his friend in the ankle.

“Watch it,” McCoy said quietly. “Or I’ll tell your mother.”

Jim scowled at him, and sulked for the next thirty miles.

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	5. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 7322/54853  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Chapter Five: Where Lady Christine unpacks her trunks and find a surprise while the Earl of Arundel falls in love at first sight_

“You haven’t brought enough gowns with you,” Gaila fretted as she hung Christine’s dresses carefully in the vast wardrobe of the guest room Christine currently inhabited.

“You packed practically everything I owned,” protested Christine as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She adjusted the angle of a hair slide a critical quarter-inch, and nodded, satisfied.

“And all of that is good for a spell in the countryside, but you’ll be dining with royalty,” Gaila said, frowning at a lemon – yellow dress and thrusting it into the wardrobe. “You need some real gowns.”

“Don’t let Monsieur Keenser hear you say that,” Christine warned. “He is one of the finest dressmakers in London.”

“Pah,” muttered Gaila. “That jumped up little man? _I_ could do better work than him – he dresses you as if you were just out of the schoolroom.”

“And what do you know of dressmaking?” sighed Christine. “I wasn’t aware you trained as a seamstress.”

“I’ve done a lot of jobs in my time, your ladyship,” Gaila said calmly, inspecting a pastel-pink dress in the clear daylight. “Including a spell as a seamstress. I made a dress for Harriette Wilson herself, once.”

“Really?” asked Christine, intrigued. “What was she like?”

“She was no lady,” Gaila said firmly. “But she could wear a dress like nobody’s business. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, my lady, she wouldn’t have been seen dead in one of Monsieur Keenser’s fashions.”

“Although I have absolutely no desire to be dressed as one of the _demi-monde_ , I can see your point,” Christine sighed, examining herself in the mirror. “I suppose my gowns are a little dowdy, when you think of who we’ll be entertaining here. If only I’d listened to Mama about having some more dresses made up, although I was in such a bad mood about being sent down here like an errant child.”

Gaila had finished unpacking the last of Christine’s trunks, but there was a large pile of other trunks sitting in the middle of the room.

“I didn’t pack these,” Gaila said. “Do they belong to you, your ladyship?”

“They’re from Mama, for Una,” Christine replied. “She wanted me to give them to her. Open them up, would you?”

Gaila located the correct key from the ring she had been given by the housekeeper back at Shrewsbury House and unlocked the first trunk.

“Well I’ll be... _darned_ ,” Gaila amended in time.

“What is it?” demanded Christine.

“Fashion plates, your ladyship,” Gaila said, digging into the trunk. “Hundreds of them, and quite the latest thing, too! Look, some of them are French.”

“Fashion plates?” Christine asked, puzzled. “Why is my mother sending my sister a trunk full of fashion plates? What’s in the other trunks? They’re massive.”

“It took four footmen to carry each of them up here,” Gaila said, fiddling with the lock. “Ah, here we go.”

She grunted with the effort of lifting the lid of the solid wooden travelling trunk, then let out a soft whistle.

“Satins,” she said lifting bolts of fine, brightly-coloured material from the trunk. “And look, silks. What fantastic colours...”

Gaila emptied the first trunk, and set about opening the remaining trunks. When she had finished, Christine felt that she was sitting in a draper’s shop. She was surrounded by bolts of material in every hue, all of the very highest quality. Lawn, organdy, and voile were all well represented, as was muslin intended for making test-dresses. There was lace, reams of it, delicate and ornate and dyed, fur trim, ribbons of all sizes and colours – in short, everything one would need if they had a pressing need to create a wardrobe full of new gowns from the bare materials. The Countess of Shrewsbury had even included pins, needles, thread and several pairs of shears.

“Mama is up to something,” Christine said at last, somewhat dazed. “But I don’t know what.”

“Perhaps she thinks that her Grace doesn’t have access to fine quality stuff like this?” Gaila asked doubtfully.

Christine snorted inelegantly.

“Christopher would buy up all the silk from China for her, and Mama knows that as well as anyone. I think that there is more to this than meets the eye.”

The sound of hooves on the gravel driveway drew Christine to the window, where she noticed two carriages and several outriders arriving. One carriage headed immediately for the back of the house and the stable yard, but the bigger one pulled up in front of the entrance way.

“I recognise those arms,” Christine said happily. “That’s the Albany coach.”

“And here’s you covered in goodness knows what,” said Gaila, attacking Christine’s dress with alacrity. “There,” she eventually. “Now you’re fit for a duke. Or an earl,” she added, with a saucy wink.

Christine sighed. “Don’t you start,” she warned. “I’ve had enough matchmaking as I can stand from Mama, I won’t take it from you.”

She left the room, walked to the end of the corridor and promptly got lost. Thankfully, a passing housemaid was able to direct her to the main staircase, and she arrived just as the last occupant of the Albany coach climbed out. Christine stopped dead in her tracks. He was tall, taller even than Jim who had always been the tallest gentleman of her acquaintance. His clothing was of a very high quality, but of sober colouring that Christine immediately approved of. The latest fashion was for outrageously coloured jackets and waistcoats in fabrics that had eye-watering prints. He wore an immaculately fitting navy blue jacket, a white linen shirt with a white Maharata cravat, a navy waistcoat and buff breeches that revealed a very fine masculine form. His boots were highly polished and the hat that he put on as soon as he exited the carriage made him look even taller. He had the hand of a sweet little girl in his larger one, while a pretty blonde lady fussed over the child’s clothing.

Christine sighed. That was just perfect; the one man she had seen all Season that she felt the slightest attraction to, and he was married.

Christopher had stepped forward to shake Jim’s hand, and she saw Jim make an overly-dramatic bow to Una, who cuffed him affectionately around the ear and drew him close for a friendly kiss to the cheek. Una had been several years older than Jim and Christine, who were of an age, but they had all romped together as children, and time had not changed their affection for each other despite the fact that their lives were now very different.

“And who is this vision?” Jim declared, catching sight of Christine making her way down the steps. “Could it be...surely it isn’t...Snotface?”

“One of these days, James, some lady is going to push you in a manure heap in an attempt to teach you manners. Oh wait, I did,” Christine smiled, extending her hand for the kiss she knew was coming her way. “Perhaps it’s time I did it again to remind you how to talk to ladies.”

“As well mannered and charming as ever, I see,” Jim said, winking and bending over her hand in a most courtly fashion.

“And you’re not dead,” Christine shot back. “Thank you so much for not dying at sea; I would have been forced into mourning and you know that black does nothing for my complexion.”

“You have my friend to thank for that; come and meet him,” Jim said, taking her hand and leading her down the rest of the steps towards the tall, dark gentleman that had taken her breath away for a moment. “Lady Christine Chapel this is Leonard McCoy, Earl of Arundel. Bones, this is Lady Christine Chapel, sister of her Grace and bane of my childhood years.”

McCoy, who had just been presented to Una, turned to face Christine. He said nothing for a moment, just caught her with a piercing brown stare that Christine fancied saw down to her very soul. Then he took the hand that Jim had proffered to him, bowed over it and let his lips ghost over her skin. Christine shuddered slightly; the most delicious sensation of his lips had sent shivers running through her body.

“Any bane of Jim’s must be a friend of mine,” he said in a gruffly polite tone.

He held her hand for a fraction of a second too long, then stepped back and released it.

“Your Graces, Lady Christine, may I present my daughter, Joanna McCoy.”

He stepped back to take the hand of the little girl, who bobbed a quick curtsey and then moved closer to the comforting bulk of her father.

Una smiled at the girl, a hand unconsciously drifting towards her mid-section.

“It is a very great pleasure to have you here, Lady Joanna,” she told her. “And who is that you have with you?”

“George, your Grace,” Joanna said, after a little prompt from her father. “George is my dog until Papa gets me a real one.”

The admiral looked in amusement at the larger McCoy, who had a pleading look on his face.

“Well Joanna, you may be in luck,” the admiral told her. “One of my dogs has had a litter a small while ago. The pups aren’t ready to leave their mother yet, but when they are you may have one of them.”

“Oh!” The look of pleasure on the little girl’s face was infectious; all the adults smiled in return and McCoy mouthed “thank-you” to the admiral over his daughter’s head.

“Miss Rand, Miss Rand, did you hear?” the girl demanded of the blonde woman, who had retreated to a respectable distance away from the rest of the party. “The Admiral is letting me have a puppy.”

“That is very generous of him, Lady Joanna,” the woman replied. “But you must take care not to disturb the puppies until they are ready to leave their mother.”

“Oh I won’t your Grace,” Joanna assured the older man earnestly. “I mean to be a very good mistress to Buttons.”

“This is Miss Rand,“ McCoy said belatedly. “My daughter’s governess. She travelled with us to keep both Joanna and Jim in line.”

The governess curtsied to Christine, Una and the Admiral and Christine was horrified to feel a rush of relief crash through her. A governess, and not his wife; that would explain the rather drab dress of inferior quality.

“It is a pleasure to have you here, Miss Rand,” Una said, coming forward to talk to the young woman directly. “But I’m afraid that you will find the nursery here in somewhat of a shambles. It had not been used in eighty years, and was in such a dreadful state that we simply had to renovate it. I’m afraid that both Lady Joanna and yourself will have to be housed in the single ladies’ wing of the house.”

“I am sure that will be no hardship, your Grace,” Miss Rand said quietly.

“I will have a room put aside for you as a schoolroom,” Una said, walking towards the house and forcing Miss Rand to keep pace with her. It was completely against all protocol; the Admiral should have led her in on his arm, ahead of Jim, and Miss Rand should have followed Lady Joanna up the steps last of all. But there was no stopping Una when she was in full sail, and clearly the chance to talk about children was something she meant to grab with both hands. It would be a few months before she could no longer be corseted and her confinement would begin; until then, the polite thing to do would be to pretend she was not _enceinte_ , although the news that the Duke and Duchess of Riverside were renovating the nursery was quite a large clue.

Still, it appeared that neither man minded following a governess into the house as they were chatting amiably about their time in the navy. Neither Christine nor Una were sticklers for correct behaviour, such as their mother was, and Christine was glad that she did not have to mind all of her manners. Not until the royal parties arrived, anyway.

Once inside, Una gave a few swift instructions to the housekeeper and Lady Joanna and Miss Rand were whisked upstairs. The Admiral invited Jim and the Earl of Arundel into his office, and Una headed off to speak to Cook about preparing special meals for Lady Joanna.  
Christine found herself alone in the entrance hall. Sighing at her uselessness, she caught a passing footman and asked to be directed to the library. There was still some time until the dressing bell would ring for dinner; maybe there was something on the shelves she could read to pass the time.

Dinner was a lively affair; Christine had never been allowed to dine with her parents until she was fourteen and about to leave the schoolroom, but seeing as the nursery was in disarray and it was practically a family dinner, a place had been set for Lady Joanna. Christine watched silently as the young child’s father helped his daughter to cut food that was difficult to manage with adult-sized cutlery, passed her condiments and bread rolls, and talked quietly to her to keep her amused.

“Lady Joanna does well at the table, McCoy,” the Admiral said, impressed with the child’s manners.

“She is used to it, your Grace,” McCoy explained. “The Dowager allows her at the table for all meals except the most formal.”

“I have to eat in the nursery with Miss Rand then,” Joanna explained to the admiral. She frowned. “Papa, why isn’t Miss Rand eating with us here? For there is no nursery for her to eat in here at Berkely Hall.”

“Governesses do not usually eat their meals with the family,” McCoy explained patiently to Joanna, who had her mutinous expression firmly engaged. “I expect she is eating in the servant’s hall, or alone in her room.”

Joanna was shocked.

“But Miss Rand is not a servant!” she protested. “She doesn’t wear a uniform like the maids do. And it is sad to think of her being alone.”

McCoy sighed, and put down his napkin.

“Joanna, you were just paid a great compliment about your table manners, and now you are showing yourself to be rude to your host,” he said firmly. “Please desist from talking about Miss Rand.”

Joanna opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Jim, however, had no such scruples.

“Miss Rand is a young lady of great intelligence and good conversation,” he told Joanna. “She would be a credit to any table she dines at, and I am sure that she is being well received here at Berkely Hall.”

McCoy rolled his eyes to the heavens, and Christine smothered a smile in her napkin. Clearly the earl found Jim a challenging friend as well.

“She is an able to hold a conversation well, do you say?” Una asked thoughtfully, glancing at Christine.

“Very well,” Jim said firmly. “In the carriage down we talked of many topics and I found her most sensible and intelligent. She reminds me of you, Christine, in many ways.”

Jim glanced in Christine’s direction and raised his wine glass. Christine nodded to him, in recognition of the compliment.

“Then she must be clever indeed,” said the Admiral, before Christine could come up with a witty retort for Jim and provide a bad example for Lady Joanna.

“We will be unbalanced at table when our guests arrive,” Una said as she signalled to the footmen to clear the plates. “Even more than we already are now. I have been wracking my brains to think how we could even up the numbers; do you think Miss Rand would like to join us for our meals?”

She directed the question at McCoy, but it was Jim who answered.

“I am sure that she would be delighted,” he said with a smile. “Who would not want to dine with such exalted company?”

“Or such big headed,” McCoy muttered, obviously intending not to be heard. Christine, who had been seated opposite him heard him clearly, and had to resort to her napkin again. She caught his eye as the buzz of conversation took over the table again, and was struck by the intensity of his gaze. She found herself breaking eye contact first, and she could feel the hint of a blush forming on her cheeks. She was most put-out by this; Christine prided herself on behaving sensibly and not like a simpering ninny like so many of her peers.

After the pudding course was over, Una and Christine retired to the drawing room, taking Joanna with them.

“Why do the ladies leave the table?” Joanna asked as they settled themselves in front of the fire.

“It is so the stench of the gentlemen’s cigars does not linger on our pretty clothes,” Una told her.

Joanna nodded thoughtfully, fingering the pale lilac dress she had been changed into.

“It is also so we ladies can say wicked things about them out of earshot,” Christine added, winking at the child, who smiled back at her.

“Lady Christine, did you really push Uncle Jim into a manure heap?” she asked shyly.

“Oh yes,” Christine replied cheerfully. “Of course, we were both nine at the time, and he had said something horribly rude to me.”

Joanna smiled at the thought.

“Not that we encourage young ladies to shove anybody into anything,” Una said hastily, frowning at her sister. As Una picked up a poker to tend to the fire, Christine leant close to Joanna and whispered to her.

“When we are alone I will tell you about the time I pushed him into the fountains in Hyde Park.”

A knock at the door interrupted them, and Miss Rand entered and curtseyed.

“I am here to take Lady Joanna to bed, your Grace,” she began, but Joanna protested.

“I have not said goodnight to Papa yet, Miss Rand,” Joanna begged. “Just a little longer, until the gentlemen come?”

“Please, Miss Rand, do sit down,” Una urged. “I have a matter of particular importance to discuss with you.”

Wordlessly Miss Rand sat on the chair Una indicated, although to Christine’s eye she looked uncomfortable, perched as she was on the very edge, as if she was going to bolt at any time.  
Una explained their predicament, and that they were in desperate need for another lady to join their party.

“The Duke of Albany praised you very highly my dear, and said that he was sure you would be a delightful conversationalist.”

“That is very kind of him,” Miss Rand said quietly, “but I’m afraid that I will not be suitably attired for dinner at table with princes, your Grace.”

Christine cast a critical eye over the woman’s gown, and silently agreed with her. Miss Rand looked elegant and tidy, but her gown was old and even dowdier than Christine’s. Then Christine was struck with a wonderful idea.

“Do not worry, Cinderella,” Christine said, rising from her seat. “You shall go to the ball. Come on everyone, I’ve got something to show you.”

She headed for the doorway and the others trailed after her, Una questioning her immediately and Miss Rand shushing an excited Joanna. With Una’s help, Christine took them back to her room and threw open the door to reveal Gaila, who had neatly stacked the bolts of cloth according to colour and material. She was now organising the fashion-plates, and scrambled to her feet when she saw her mistress and the assorted company. She bobbed a curtsey, and let Christine explain why her room now looked like the inside of a haberdashery.

“Mama did this?” Una said, confused, as she fingered a particularly fine silver sateen that Christine thought just the thing for a lining of a cloak.

“I have no idea why,” Christine told her. “I can only think that she assumes there are no cloth merchants in Gloucestershire.”

“Well, Miss Rand, it seems that your problems are solved,” Una said brightly. “We can make you up something that is the very height of fashion.”

“Oh, your Grace, I couldn’t possibly accept such a gift,” Miss Rand said hurriedly.

“Nonsense,” said Una, who had taken to the power of a duchess like a duck to water. “Even if Christine and I both redid our entire wardrobes, there would still be enough material left over to clothe a battalion.”

Miss Rand backed down in the strength of such an argument; Christine didn’t blame her. Una had been impossible to disobey before her marriage; now she was nigh-on unstoppable.

“You will look very pretty, Miss Rand,” Joanna told her, before yawning loudly.

“I think it is time for bed, Lady Joanna,” Miss Rand said immediately, as if she were glad that she was no longer the centre of attention. “I will take you to see your Papa.”

Joanna acquiesced, and Miss Rand removed her from the room. Christine and Una followed them back down to the drawing room, where the gentlemen had assembled. McCoy took his daughter into a quiet corner of the room for a brief, earnest talk before he kissed her on the forehead and bade her goodnight. Miss Rand and her charge left the room, and McCoy rejoined the others around the fireplace.

“I have no idea what Mama was thinking, but it has been very useful indeed,” finished Una. “Miss Rand will look like a diamond of the first water when she is properly clothed.”

Jim scowled at his friend.

“For shame, Bones,” he said. “You should be paying your daughter’s governess more, then she would have a decent gown to wear to dinner.”

“What I pay Miss Rand is nobody’s business but hers and mine,” McCoy told him. “And I’ll have you know that her wage is a respectable one, acknowledging her ability as a governess. Joanna adores her, and I wasn’t about to see her disappear elsewhere for the sake of a more generous salary.”

The men glared at each other for a moment, and then Una stepped in and changed the subject by asking Jim about his mother. The conversation moved on to other, less charged topics, and everyone began to relax.

By the time the party retired for the night, Gaila had been able to move most of the bolts of cloth to another room.

“The housekeeper has opened up the sewing room, my lady,” she told Christine as she unbuttoned her gown and helped her to step out of it. “Footmen will retrieve the rest of the material tomorrow.”

“Very good,” Christine said absently, picking up a stack of fashion-plates from the dressing table.

“I took the liberty of keeping those back from the general pile, your ladyship. I thought they might suit you,” Gaila told her.

“Hmm,” muttered Christine. The gowns were simply ravishing, she had to admit. She had never really cared for her clothes that much before, but now that the Earl of Arundel was staring at her, she suddenly felt conscious of her lack of fashionable attire.

“Don’t blow out the candles,” Christine said to Gaila once she had been changed into her night gown and a pretty wrapper. “I think I’ll read a little before I go to sleep.”

“Very good, my lady,” Gaila said with a smirk. “Will it be a novel that you’re wanting?”

“Oh shut up,” Christine said, settling in a chair in front of the fire. “And pass me some more of those plates.”

Una did not appear at breakfast the next morning, although apparently this was nothing new. She had confided to Christine that she found it impossible to eat in the mornings, and Christine didn’t feel it necessary to sit at her bedside as her sister lost control of her stomach.

Christine helped herself from the platters of food on the sideboard, and a footman held a chair for her while another poured her a cup of tea. She had just started her meal when Lady Joanna came into the room, accompanied by her toy dog and her governess. Miss Rand helped Joanna pick her breakfast and saw her to her seat, then hovered uncertainly.

“Please Miss Rand, I must insist that you join me,” Christine told her. “I have spent all night staring at fashion plates and I am quite confused about what will suit me. Will you help me decide?”

“Can I help?” asked Joanna, and Christine agreed. Miss Rand made a plate for herself, and the three of them fell to talking of colours and designs.

“Of course, this is so unlike me to be bothered with my wardrobe,” Christine sighed. “Usually I go with Mama and stand there while she and Monsieur Keenser decide what I will wear.”

“Miss Rand makes her dresses,” piped up Joanna. “And she makes clothes for my dolls. She’s a very good embroiderer.”

Miss Rand winced at Joanna’s imperfect English, and gently corrected her. Christine felt awful; she’d never had to make anything in her life, and there she was complaining about her lifestyle to someone who was of very reduced circumstances.

“I must apologise, Miss Rand,” she said quietly. “I spoke without thinking, and acted like a complete nincompoop.”

“There is no need to apologise, Lady Christine,” Miss Rand said hurriedly, but Christine insisted.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to get used to my gaffes,” she told the young woman firmly. “I have a tendency to open my mouth and place my foot directly into it. I beg your forbearance.”

Miss Rand was so lovely and gentle in her manners that Christine could not help liking her immediately, and became determined that if she could do nothing less for the young woman, she would send her back to London with a trunk full of beautiful new gowns.

Joanna’s face brightened into a smile when she saw her father enter the room, and in return he smiled also, leaning over to kiss her warmly on the cheek. While Jim went straight to the food and started to shovel a disgustingly large amount onto his plate, the earl sat next to his daughter and asked her seriously about her experiences sleeping in a grown up’s room.

“I love the big bed!” Joanna giggled. “And I wasn’t scared , Papa. There is a door between my room and Miss Rand’s, and she read to me before I went to sleep, and left the door open in case I needed her in the night.”

“And did you?” the earl asked.

“No,” she said proudly. “I was very brave, Papa.”

Joanna was distracted by a footman entering the room with a salver of fruit.

“Strawberries!” she said in excitement, and hopped off her chair to fill a bowl with them. Her father took the opportunity to fetch his own breakfast, and when he returned to the table he left Joanna talking excitedly to Jim and sat across from Christine.

She immediately ran a tongue over her teeth and prayed that no unfortunate speck of breakfast was clinging to anywhere unsightly.

“Lady Joanna has been helping us decide on our new dresses,” Christine said to him by way of greeting. “I rather believe that she sees it as playing with over-sized dolls.”

She sent Joanna a smile, and the little girl returned it.

“As long as she is not being a nuisance,” the earl said, sending a mock-stern look at his daughter.

“No indeed; she has been very well mannered,” Christine insisted. “A credit to her governess, if not her Uncle Jim.”

“Are you taking my name in vain, Christine?” Jim demanded.

“Never,” swore Christine.

“What are your plans for the day?” Jim asked, filching a strawberry from Joanna’s bowl and tapping her on the nose with it.

“I will have to talk to Una about our guests, and start to plan for their arrivals, but there is no immediate rush. They do not arrive for another fortnight.”

“We have to make dresses, Lady Christine,” Joanna told her seriously.

“You have lessons to attend to first, Lady Joanna,” Miss Rand said firmly.

Joanna sighed, and her father smiled.

“What does she learn today, Miss Rand?” he asked.

“I thought we might begin our lessons outdoors today, with a nature walk,” Miss Rand replied. “Lady Joanna has not yet had a lesson on botany.”

Christine was impressed, and told Miss Rand so.

“All my governess wanted to do was French and drawing,” she said enviously. “If it wasn’t for my father taking us under his wing, Una and I would have ended up complete scattershells.”

“I could never understand why you wanted to learn Latin and Greek,” Jim remembered, sipping coffee. “There I was trying to escape from my tutors, and there you were trying to break into my schoolroom.”

“You’d understand if you were a woman,” she told him. “It’s one thing to be unable to grasp concepts because you haven’t the intelligence to do it, it’s quite another to be thought of as deficient merely because of your sex, without being given a chance to prove yourself.”

“As deficient?” Jim asked with a wink.

“As anything!” Christine said, annoyed, looking about the breakfast table for something to throw at him.

“I quite agree with you,” the earl said quietly. “I hope that my daughter will be able to better herself by the means of a sound education. No subject matter will be off-limits to her, should she display an aptitude for it.”

“That is very progressive of you, my lord,” Christine told him, turning her back on Jim. “I wish that there were more fathers like you, willing to extend to their daughters what they would insist their sons had.”

“You said that your father educated you and your sister?” McCoy asked.

Christine nodded. “We learned the basics, of course, from our governess, but my father is a scientist, and he exposed us to that. Like him, I prefer the natural sciences and chemistry, but Una showed skill with the more abstract theories – the work of Sir Isaac Newton particularly interested her for a while. Her skill with mathematics is much greater than mine.”

Jim had been watching the exchange between them with a smile on his face.

“You are not the only scientist at the table, Christine. Bones here is a medical man.”

Christine turned back to McCoy and asked, “Is that why he calls you Bones? Because of your interest in anatomy?”

“He calls me that ridiculous name because sailors call a surgeon a ‘saw-bones’,” explained McCoy. “I studied medicine while at university against the wishes of my father, who did not believe that a gentleman’s son should sully himself with the knowledge of medical science. When we went to war, I leant my services to the navy.”

“And thank goodness he did, otherwise I would never have survived!” Jim said cheerfully.  
Joanna gasped, and McCoy scowled at Jim.

“Don’t worry, sweetling, it was only a scratch,” Jim reassured her, guilt writ clear over his handsome features. “Just a few splinters in my shoulder.”

Miss Rand and Christine exchanged looks; clearly there was more to the story. Joanna, however, looked relieved.

“Papa is very good at removing splinters,” she said knowledgably, finishing the last strawberry in the bowl. “I cried when he took out mine. Did you cry, Uncle Jim?”

“Like a baby,” Jim said flatly. “I was sobbing my heart out, wasn’t I, Bones?”

“That’s one way to describe it, yes,” McCoy said. “Although after the second bottle of brandy, you did calm down a little.”

“Brandy has that affect on me,” Jim agreed, and Joanna laughed as Jim slumped in his chair, miming the effects of too much brandy.

“It is time for your nature walk, Lady Joanna,” Miss Rand said, rising from the table.

“May I join you?” Christine asked, setting aside her cutlery. “It looks like a beautiful morning outside.”

“You can have a botany lesson from Miss Rand as well!” Joanna said cheerfully.

“I would enjoy that immensely,” Christine said. “I’ll fetch my pelisse.”

“You know, I am suddenly inspired by all this feminine intelligence to improve myself as well,” Jim declared. “I have the sudden urge for a botany lesson. What say you, Bones? Will you be joining us?”

McCoy caught Christine’s eye, and she fought to keep her gaze steady and clear.

“I think it’s a capital idea,” he said softly, and something about the tone of his voice caused Christine’s stomach to somersault.

McCoy kept to the back of the small group that set out to explore the large gardens of Berkely Hall. Miss Rand and Joanna headed the band of adventurers, with Miss Rand keeping up a steady stream of information for Joanna. She would pause to ask and answer questions, and from McCoy’s perspective his daughter looked alert and engaged. They were discussing trees at the moment, and Joanna had been set the task of finding specimens of leaves for later study. She was having a capital time running around the garden, and looked the picture of health and happiness.

McCoy was glad; memories of Joanna when he had found her all but abandoned in a locked room haunted him still, and he looked to banish them and replace them with far more pleasant ones. The thought of pleasant things caused him to look towards Lady Christine, who was walking slightly ahead of him on Jim’s arm. They were talking and laughing with an easy manner that showed their closeness and long standing friendship. Jim dropped his head to whisper something private in her ear, and McCoy was surprised by the feeling of jealousy that overtook him. Lady Christine obviously took offence at whatever impropriety Jim had suggested, because she slugged him in the arm with a skill that showed long practice in the art of clamping down on Jim’s wild excesses.

The punch made McCoy’s lips quirk in amusement; clearly Lady Christine was made of firmer stuff than most of her contemporaries. Her remarks regarding the education of women had been interesting, and she clearly felt very strongly on the subject. He began to wonder just how much of a scientist she was, and whether her interest in the subject extended to an understanding of it.

Joanna ran up to him then, breaking him of his observation of Lady Christine’s form (long, and not too slender; her gown at breakfast had revealed a womanly, curvaceous figure that he preferred to the fashionable slender look). She proudly displayed her collection of leaves, and flawlessly identified their species and function. Lady Christine dropped back to investigate the collection also, and listened attentively to Joanna’s mini-lecture. From the side of his eye, McCoy saw Jim sidle close to Miss Rand, but he was far more interested in the beautiful blonde at his side to think of the pretty blonde girl several yards ahead.

“So the thick vein in the centre of the leaf carries nutrients?” the lady in question asked Joanna, who nodded. “And the thinner veins carry them to the very edges,” she continued, again looking to Joanna for confirmation. “Ah, like our arteries and veins,” she said in satisfaction.

Joanna looked confused. “Papa, I do not understand,” she said, with a frown on her forehead.  
“Lady Christine speaks of our bodies, and how they are constructed,” McCoy explained. “There is indeed a great similarity,” he added, nodding to her.

Joanna nodded, happy with her answer. Then Miss Rand called her to rejoin her, and Joanna hurried off, clutching her leaf collection.

He fell into step with Lady Christine, and after a moment’s hesitation, offered her his arm. A warm feeling of happiness was cast through him when she accepted it immediately.

“I believe you are the only lady of my acquaintance that has ever showed an interest in arteries and veins,” he said after a moment’s companionable silence.

“I am very sure that you are right,” Lady Christine sighed. “I know that it is not a ladylike thing to be interested in, and my mama is forever telling me off about it, but I can’t help but be fascinated by the way our bodies are put together.”

“I understand completely,” McCoy assured her. “There is much satisfaction to be had from understanding something so complex. Have you gathered your knowledge from books, Lady Christine?”

“Yes,” she answered, “and the public lectures I have been able to attend. My father has a little knowledge of the subject, and sometimes he allows me to visit the Royal Society with him.”

She paused and looked about to ensure that she was not about to be overheard, but Joanna was ahead, listening intently to Miss Rand, who had stopped by an oak tree and was explaining something. Jim was equally rapt.

“Once, I was allowed to be present at a lecture where a professor of anatomy performed a partial dissection,” she confided. “My father smuggled me into a corner and I was able to watch Doctor Puri deliver his lesson about the circulatory system. It was fascinating.”

McCoy’s eyebrows rose.

“I would imagine your lady mother would not have approved of that,” he said dryly and Lady Christine laughed.

“No indeed,” she agreed. “I pretended I was paying a call on some friends.”

“You didn’t find it a little gruesome?” McCoy enquired.

Lady Christine looked puzzled.

“Gruesome? Why, no, my lord. I was so busy attending to Doctor Puri’s words that I quite forgot to be squeamish.”

She sniffed.

“I think that there are many women who could cope with a little blood and gore in exchange for an education,” she said firmly. “One of these days there will be female doctors, Lord Arundel. This is the nineteenth century, after all. A time of great change and advancement, or so The Times said last Wednesday.”

“I hope you are right, Lady Christine,” McCoy said, his attention drawn to the flash of spirit in her blue eyes, and the pink fullness of her lips.

The conversation moved on to other matters; she asked about his time on board the HMS _Enterprise_ with Jim, and begged for silly stories about his bad behaviour. In turn she told him some priceless gems about his escapades as a boy. The nature walk continued away from house, down over some spotlessly manicured lawns and past large flower beds, beginning to bloom with spring’s first flowers. The group followed a walk down a well-maintained path to a large lake, fed by a quickly moving river that banked away from the pool and down towards the rest of the Riverside property.

Joanna immediately ran towards a wooden bridge that offered a path over the river, missing out the longer trail around the side of the lake.

“No, Lady Joanna,” Miss Rand said firmly, her voice breaking into McCoy’s pleasant conversation. “I do not believe that bridge is safe.”

McCoy looked up to see Joanna pause at the start of the bridge, a mutinous look on her face.  
“But I want to cross it!” she protested, taking a few steps onto the bridge.

“Joanna McCoy, you listen to Miss Rand at once,” McCoy said loudly, disengaging Christine’s arm and striding towards his errant child. “If she tells you not to cross that bridge, you will not cross it, do you understand?”

McCoy peered closely at the wooden bridge. It did not look safe; some of the support timbers had were quite rotten and he did not believe it would take the weight of a man.

“Yes, Papa,” sniffed Joanna, tears beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. She stepped away from the bridge and stepped dolefully down the path around the edge of the lake. McCoy stared after her, concern etched on his face.

“Do not worry,” advised Lady Christine, who had caught up with him. “You did the right thing. I am sure that Lady Joanna will soon forget her scolding. Look, Jim is playing the fool to amuse her.”

“Jim is always playing the fool,” McCoy said automatically, then paused.

“I...find it hard to discipline her, sometimes,” he admitted.

“Most fathers do,” Lady Christine told him, putting her hand back into the crook of his elbow. “It is why we daughters adore you so.”

“Has Jim told you of her mother?” McCoy asked her, as they strolled after the other group.

“Only that she passed away when Joanna was small,” his companion replied. “He has not broken any confidences.”

“There are none to break,” McCoy assured her. “I was away at sea when her mother died, and I did not get the news for almost a year after it happened.”

Lady Christine’s face was full of sorrow.

“It must have been awful for you,” she said quietly. “Especially with your medical knowledge.”

“It was smallpox,” he said heavily. “There was nothing that could be done. By the time I arrived home, Joanna was at the mercy of a most cruel aunt, who saw her as nothing more as a way to extort money from a fund set up for her needs.”

Lady Christine gasped, and gripped his arm tighter.

“I promised myself then and there that I would be the very best father I could be to her, after failing her so miserably in her infancy,” he admitted.

“And now you feel bad whenever you scold her, because you feel as if you are being cruel to her?” Lady Christine asked, and he nodded stiffly. He wondered at the fact that he had told this virtual stranger such an intimate secret, one that he had not yet put words to for Jim.

Lady Christine shook her head decisively.

“Your feelings are understandable, my lord, and show great love for your child. But it would also be a form of neglect not to attend to her discipline; I have seen spoiled children of the _ton_ , and I can assure you that they are monsters of the highest order. The girls are by far the worst,” she told him. “Lady Joanna strikes me as an intelligent little girl, and it always the clever children that are in need of the firmest discipline.”

She threw him an amused look.

“The Dowager Duchess spent most of Jim’s youth blistering his backside for his exploits, and he turned out to be a national hero. I do not think that Lady Joanna will ever need such a heavy hand, but you will do her a great disservice if you do not take care to rein her in when she needs it.”

“Somehow, my lady, I do not believe that your father ever reined in your excesses,” McCoy remarked dryly.

“Oh no! In fact, he rather encouraged them,” admitted Christine. “But that was my mother’s job, and she did it very well. My brother Andrew is a model young gentleman, if you excuse the occasional over-abundance of spirits, and Una is the best woman in the world,” she finished loyally.

“And you?” McCoy asked.

Lady Christine smiled. “Well, I no longer run about the lawn with a bow and arrow and pretend I am an Indian princess, so she must have had some success.”

McCoy had a vision of a girl of Joanna’s age, long blonde hair streaming behind her as she charged around a lawn, gleefully firing her arrows and whooping a war chant.

“That is a shame,” McCoy said gallantly. “I am sure that you made a lovely Indian princess.”

Lady Christine laughed.

“I kept up my archery,” she told him with an amused glance. “I am very good at hitting my targets, my lord.”

She left him standing like an idiot on the pathway as she gracefully drifted forwards to amuse a sulking Joanna. She didn’t look backwards, which was just as well, for McCoy was sure that the Cupid’s arrow she had shot had found its target, for the entire world to see.


	6. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 4056/55536  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Chapter Six: Where Lady Christine gets interrogated by her sister and Lord Arundel overhears something he shouldn't._

The threat of grey storm clouds curtailed their nature walk; not long after Miss Rand decided it was time to return to the house the wind began to pick up. They had barely been inside the house for a minute before the rain began to fall in earnest. Miss Rand whisked Joanna off upstairs to an office that had been hastily converted to a schoolroom just as Una appeared.

“Ah, Christine, there you are,” she said, looking determined.

Christine automatically felt a little scared, a sort of automatic reaction to her sister’s ruthlessly organised nature.

“I have been speaking to Mrs Barrett, the housekeeper,” she told Christine as a housemaid stepped forward to take Christine’s pelisse. “She has organised the sewing room.”

“Did you know you had a sewing room?” Christine asked, softening her impertinence with a kiss to the cheek of her tired-looking sister.

“Very droll,” sighed Una. She looked about to check that there were no servants in earshot, and then murmured, “Actually, no, I had no blasted idea I had a sewing room. This place has over one hundred and forty rooms, Christine, not including the servants' quarters and outbuildings. I only found the conservatory last week, and that was because I took a wrong turn looking for the music room.”

Christine couldn’t help but to laugh.

“You should mount an expedition and hire a cartographer,” she teased.

“It has crossed my mind,” Una muttered. “Come on. You are wanted for a fitting.”

Waiting for Christine in the sewing room were the housekeeper, Mrs Barrett, Gaila and three maids. Fashion plates had been spread over a large table, and Gaila was examining them critically.

“Mrs Barrett is an expert seamstress,” Una said, which caused a flush of pride to rush over the older woman’s face. “And she says that her maids are also very good with a needle. O’Ryan says she also has experience in this field. Together we are going to plan out a new ensemble for you, Christine, suitable for entertaining our guests.”

“Will there be enough time?” Christine asked as Gaila advanced on her with a measuring tape, a fierce glint in her eye. “I’m going to need a lot of gowns, and there is also Miss Rand to consider.”

Una looked to Mrs Barrett, who cocked her head in thought.

“There are several seamstresses in the village, your Grace,” she said at last. “And I’m sure that plenty of our maids here have relations that can sew well in the villages nearby, if your Grace is willing to employ them.”

“Of course,” Una said thoughtfully. “We must employ as many of the local people as we can, however we can. Will you put the word out, Mrs Barrett? I think it is best that we house them here. We have two weeks until our guests arrive.”

“I’ll send word out directly, your Grace,” Mrs Barrett promised.

“Tell them we’ll pay London wages,” Una told her, “With bonuses for particularly fine work. Of course, the same money will be paid to any of the household staff that help, at your discretion, Mrs Barrett.”

The older woman nodded, looking pleased at the thought of earning some extra money herself. Christine had observed the exchange while being poked and prodded in some intimate areas by Gaila.

“Are you quite done?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“I am for now,” Gaila said, making a notation in her notebook. “But you’ll have to get used to fittings over the next two weeks as we start making up the dresses.”

Christine sighed, but acquiesced. “What designs do you have in mind for me?”

Gaila’s eyes gleamed, and she handed Christine a veritable mountain of fashion plates. Una intervened a few times, and Mrs Barrett once or twice, but it was Gaila who made most of the decisions about Christine’s wardrobe.

“The dresses need to be sophisticated,” Gaila said as she rejected a proffered design from one of the maids. “Lady Christine needs to look like a woman, not a miss just out of the schoolroom.”

The women in the sewing room looked at Christine’s gown critically and nodded their agreement.

“No bows,” said one of the maids, frowning.

“Or ruffles,” said another.

“Maybe we should move away from pastel colours, try something a little bolder,” mused Mrs Barrett.

“Do I actually need to be here?” wondered Christine, aloud.

“Yes,” said Una immediately. “Stand still and be quiet.”

Christine did as she was told, as her crowd of fashion advisors planned out what sounded like a fantastic wardrobe. She managed to veto a few of their more outlandish selections, but she had to admit that they sounded as if they knew what they were talking about.

She had plenty of time to think of her walk in the gardens with the earl, and how easily the conversation between them had flowed. He was an interesting man, with very radical ideas when it came to the education of his daughter. Christine could imagine that they could have some very stimulating discussions, and she was eager to find out what had prompted him to defy his father and study medicine.

Of course, the firmness of the muscle beneath her hand when he had offered his arm in the garden hadn’t escaped her notice. He really was a handsome man; not in the way that Jim was, with his dazzling eyes and perfect features. That was not to say that the earl was in any way ill-favoured, but there was a depth to the face of the earl that intrigued her; it spoke of character and determination. His height was unusual; until Christine had met the earl, Jim had been quite the tallest gentleman of her acquaintance. But the earl was an inch or so taller, and his shoulders a hand-span or so wider in breadth. Christine, to her mother’s great dismay, was a tall woman, and so appreciated the luxury of a tall man.

Christine was replaying the conversation of earlier in her head, delighting in the gravelly tones of the earl’s voice, when Una coughed to get her attention.

“We have finished, Christine.”

Christine blinked and came out of her daze to see the housemaids and Mrs Barrett bustling around with bolts of muslin and pairs of shears, with Gaila carefully marking out sections of the dress ready for cutting.

“You have been very patient,” Una told her sister as they watched the maids start to cut muslin industriously.

“Thank you,” Christine said obediently.

“So what was it that occupied your thoughts for so long?” Una asked. “Or shall I say, _who_?”

“Nobody,” Christine said heavily. “Nothing. I was just woolgathering, that’s all.”

Her elder sister said nothing, merely raising an eyebrow in a supercilious manner that had driven Christine crazy for as long as she could remember.

“If that is all, I think I shall lie down for an hour before luncheon,” Christine told her sister. “I feel a slight headache coming on.”

Her sister nodded, looking vaguely amused, and Christine left the room and headed for the ladies’ wing of the house. Of course, she took a wrong turning and found herself instead on an empty corridor with only stern-faced portraits of long-dead royalty to keep her company. She sighed and headed down it, hoping that she would come out onto a familiar part of the house at the end. Instead she found the make-shift schoolroom that Una had organised for Lady Joanna.

The door to the room was open, and Christine heard the low tones of Miss Rand speaking to the child as she corrected the position of the paintbrush in her hand.

“Lady Christine!” Joanna said happily. “Come and look at my picture.”

“I hope I am not intruding,” Christine said to the patient governess. “I was looking for my room, but I seem to have taken a wrong turning.”

“Not at all, your ladyship, please, do come in,” invited Miss Rand. “The house is rather like a maze, isn’t it?”

“I shall have to emulate Theseus, and take to carrying a ball of string around with me,” Christine said. “Is this an art lesson?”

“Art and botany,” explained Miss Rand. “Lady Joanna is painting her leaf collection and will be labelling them for further reference.”

Christine looked at the vaguely leaf-shaped blobs on Joanna’s paper.

“Very well done,” she said encouragingly to the child, who looked at her askance.

“They are not,” she sighed. “I cannot paint.”

“Nonsense,” Christine said. “I think that you do very well for your age.”

“Miss Rand is much better than I am,” Joanna said dispiritedly.

“That is because I have had longer to practice, Lady Joanna,” Miss Rand said patiently.

“Practice makes perfect, or at least, that is what my governess used to tell me,” Christine said cheerfully. “It has been a long time since I practiced my watercolours, I must admit. Do you mind if I join you?”

She had addressed the question to Miss Rand, but it was Joanna who answered.

“Please stay, Lady Christine; you could paint one of my leaves, if you like!”

“Very well,” Christine said, settling herself at the table. “Pass me one you’ve done already, I shan’t do your work for you, you know.”

Grumbling, because she had been hoping for just that, Joanna passed her the leaf of an oak tree. Carefully, Christine applied her paintbrush to her paper, and began to slowly replicate the leaf. After ten minute’s work, she sat back and peered critically at her creation.

“It has been a long time since you practiced, hasn’t it?” Joanna said, appearing at her side and grinning at her lop-sided leaf.

“Lady Joanna!” Miss Rand said indignantly, but Christine waved her away.

“You are right,” she said ruefully. “I always preferred archery to watercolours.”

“I think that I would prefer archery to watercolours,” announced Joanna, and Miss Rand laughed.

“There is no reason why you cannot apply yourself to both equally,” she told her charge.

“Besides, archery is not an indoor hobby, and you must have something to occupy your time when the weather is wet,” Christine told Joanna. “I think I’d better start again, don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” laughed Joanna. “It is a most unusual leaf, Lady Christine.”

Christine applied herself happily to her leaf until the bell rang for luncheon; Christine accompanied Miss Rand and her charge downstairs and they ate a happy meal with Una in a small, pretty parlour used for ladies at luncheon. The men were absent, locked away in the duke’s study discussing the upcoming visit, so the ladies had the pleasure of discussing delightedly feminine subjects without the risk of masculine ridicule.

Una took the opportunity to strong-arm Miss Rand into submitting for a dress fitting, as she herself had been fitted after Christine earlier in the day. For the lack of anything else to do, Christine followed them back up to the sewing room and sat with Joanna as Miss Rand was set upon by measuring tapes.

“I am glad Miss Rand is getting a new dress,” Joanna said quietly to Christine. “For she only has three.”

Christine blanched at that; sometimes she changed her gowns four or five times a day, depending on her activities. Not for the first time, she became aware of the comfort of her position and a small bite of shame lanced through her. It did puzzle her, though; the Earl of Arundel had claimed that he paid his governess a higher than standard wage, and she did not doubt his truthfulness. Although Miss Rand would not boast a wardrobe as fine as hers, there should have been enough money for her to buy a new dress, especially if she was good with a needle. Perhaps Miss Rand was laying away money against her future; there was no family fortune to comfort her if she did not marry.

“She shall have lots of new dresses,” Christine told Joanna. “My sister shall see to that.”

And indeed, Una was already directing the maids to hold bolts of cloth near to Miss Rand’s face to choose colours that would suit her complexion.

“Perhaps something more serviceable would be appropriate, your Grace,” Miss Rand was saying nervously as Gaila advanced upon her with a length of gold voile.

“No,” said Una thoughtfully. “The gold does wonders for your hair. Definitely an evening gown, and I think also a cloak. Mrs Barrett, have we anything in pink?”

They had, and everybody pronounced it a perfect colour to bring out the natural roses in her cheeks. They shied away from the bolder colours they had chosen for Christine that morning, choosing instead paler colours and fabrics that would show off Miss Rand’s delicate beauty.

Joanna was watching the activity eagerly, and had wandered among the bolts of cloth, rubbing her (thankfully, clean) hands over some of the more beautiful fabrics.

“There, Miss Rand, we are done with you for now,” Una said kindly.

“Thank you, your Grace,” Miss Rand said shakily, and stepped away from the huddle of maids who were already cutting out a pattern for her first dress.

“I think Lady Joanna should have a new dress also,” Christine told her sister loudly, pitching her voice to carry to Joanna, who was standing at the back of the room, out of the way. “She cannot be the only lady at Berkely not to enjoy these fine materials.”

“Of course!” Una said immediately, with a smile that was at both genuine and calculating. “Joanna, do you have a favourite colour?”

“Purple,” Joanna said immediately. “And I like flowers, your Grace.”

There several shades of purple fabric to choose from, and many flowered prints. One of the maids selected a fashion plate of a simple morning dress and said that she could alter it to be suitable for a child. In the end, it was decided that Joanna should have three new dresses as it was simply impossible to choose between the sumptuous fabrics. Una, in a maternal mood, decreed that George would be given collars to match his mistress’ new gowns and was much taken aback by Joanna’s impetuous and slightly embarrassed hug of thanks. There were tears in her eyes when Joanna released her, and Mrs Barrett silently handed her a handkerchief.

From her observation point, Christine made a note to get the maids to embroider a gross of new handkerchiefs for Una. Clearly, she would be in need of them in the months ahead.

 

Joanna left with Miss Rand, chattering excitedly about her new clothes. Una linked her arm with Christine’s, and walked her down one of the long gallery corridors. Together they admired the view over the gardens, including the wooden bridge over the river.

“You should get your groundskeeper to check the bridge,” Christine told Una. “Miss Rand and the Earl thought it unsafe for Joanna to walk on earlier today.”

“I will tell Christopher,” Una promised. She took a sideways look at her sister. “I take it that you had the opportunity to converse with Lord Arundel this morning?”

“We talked when we all went for a walk in the gardens,” Christine sighed. “Do not order the banns to be read just because I had a conversation with the man, Una.”

“I just want you to be happy,” her sister told her, patting her hand. “Just because I waited forever to be married does not mean that you have to also. “

“Good grief, I met the man yesterday,” protested Christine. “I do not think anyone outside of silly novels knows after a day that they are suited for a life together.”

“Christopher speaks very highly of him,” Una confided. “He says he is by far the best surgeon that he ever sailed with, and is a true man of science. Papa will like that.”

“And would he be so well regarded if he had not been advanced through the kind actions of a friend?” Christine enquired, her tone a little sharp. “I hardly think that the Earl of Shrewsbury would make a match for his daughter with a Northumberland sheep baron, no matter how skilled he was in the study of medicine. After all, it’s practically a trade.”

“Christine!” Una said, shocked.

“I mean no offense to the Earl; from the small time I have spent in his company I have found him to be an intelligent and considerate man. He is certainly a very good parent to his daughter. But I am tired of being dangled in front of single gentlemen like some sort of prize to be won, Una. Of all people, you should know what that is like.”

Her pleading tone had softened Una’s scowl.

“I remember all too well,” Una told her. “But I always had faith that Christopher would return and marry me. It was all that kept me going, at times,” she admitted. “You have nobody in your life like that, Christine, and that saddens me. I just want you to be happy,” she finished.

“I _am_ happy,” Christine stressed. “Well, as happy as one can be while still under the control of Mama, anyway. What would truly make me happy would be to be free to study whatever my heart desired, without anyone deciding for me what is appropriate.”

“You don’t want to be married, and have children?” Una asked, slightly shocked.

“Yes! No! I am not sure,” Christine said wildly. “I know that it what I am _expected_ to do, and deep down I suspect that I eventually will be married. But there is a part of me, a large part of me, that wishes for nothing more than a snug little cottage, with room for a library and a laboratory.”

“There are men who would be glad to give you that,” her sister said quietly.

“I have met few men of the _ton_ who give a fig about improving anything other than their incomes,” Christine replied sadly. “As soon as I mention my intellectual interests they look at me as if I were a zoological oddity. And those gentlemen of science who would not look askance at a wife interested in improving her mind are so far down the social scale that I barely have chance to meet them, let alone get to know them.”

“You must not give up hope,” Una said firmly. “I am positive that there is a gentleman out there with space for your library in his house, although it would have to be considerably larger than a snug cottage to allow all of your books to fit in one room,” Una teased, lightening the mood a little. “Perhaps you should aim for a townhouse.”

“Why stop there, why not a castle?” laughed Christine. “I am _excessively_ fond of reading.”

“I have heard that Arundel Castle boasts a most spectacular library,” Una said slyly, and laughed at Christine’s exasperated shriek.

“Come on, we have menus to plan and entertainments to devise,” Una continued, towing her sister down the gallery.

McCoy paused in his appreciation of the fine weapons mounted on the wall of the salon as he heard the sounds of feminine voices coming down the hallway. He had not closed the door behind him when he entered the room, and so he heard the conversation between Lady Christine and her sister quite clearly.

Lady Christine’s words had brought about a whole raft of emotions in him. She thought she was speaking in confidence with her sister, he reminded himself. She was speaking honestly, and from the heart, something that the society women of his acquaintance rarely did.

It stung his pride a little to be dismissed as a suitor so readily, although he had to acknowledge her point that they had indeed only known each other for a day. She was also correct in her judgement that acting as if they were characters in a novel was detrimental to good sense and proper behaviour. And, he was forced to admit, in his heart of hearts he would always be a Northumberland sheep baron, albeit one skilled in the science of medicine.

Something about the pleading tone of her voice when she spoke of being used as a matrimonial prize spoke to him; God only knew how he hated the gleam in the eye of avaricious mamas when he stepped foot into a ballroom. As a daughter of an earl her dowry would be significantly higher than that of the average society miss. It would make her a target for fortune hunters and rakes, and Jim had mentioned that she had already refused several suitors.

Her heart’s desire was to improve her mind, it seemed, and he could not find fault with her for that. In fact, the knowledge that she was intelligent, and sought to increase her knowledge, only made her more attractive. And she was attractive enough without that, he knew.

Lady Christine’s tall, blonde, elegant form was completely the opposite of his wife’s lithe, sensual beauty. Jocelyn had been forced to stand on her toes whenever she had kissed him; Lady Christine would merely have to turn her head to allow him to capture her pink lips.

Basic physical attraction had sought him to seek out Jocelyn; their passion for each other had brought about him comprising her and their subsequent, hasty marriage. Jocelyn had been wild and full of passion, tempestuous and loud. Their lovemaking had stood second only to their arguments for frequency, volume and intensity.

Giving in to his attraction for Jocelyn had been a mistake; it had trapped them both in a marriage that, once the passion had quelled, quickly became loveless. They had absolutely nothing in common, and little respect for the other’s interests. Joanna was the best thing about their marriage, the one and only fact that they could both agree on. Jocelyn had loved Joanna completely, and had saved Joanna’s life by sending her to the aged aunt and setting up a fund for her upkeep when she suspected smallpox had entered their house.

McCoy had quickly loved and then slowly hated his wife, but he would never impugn her maternal skills. She had kept Joanna alive the only way she could, by denying herself the company of her daughter as she succumbed to the terrible disease.

Any woman who McCoy even thought of marrying would have to be willing to love Joanna, and accept her as a daughter. McCoy had heard shocking tales of new wives sending children of first marriages away to boarding schools to clear the nursery for their own offspring. He and Joanna came as a matched set; he could not marry anybody who would not promise to love and care for Joanna as their own child. He owed Jocelyn that much.

Lady Christine was not disinclined to marriage, it seemed, but would demand that any husband of hers not interfere in her plans to improve her mind. As a married woman she would have more freedom to move about in society, and no interfering mama would be able to stop her from attending lectures or buying books.

He had rushed into a match with his first wife; McCoy was in no great hurry to do so again. Indeed, until this visit to the countryside, he had not been thinking of marrying again for a long while. But when Lady Christine had appeared before him on the steps of the house, hand in hand with his smirking best friend, he had felt as if a thunderbolt had hit him. He immediately had wanted to yank her from Jim’s grip, as if his friend’s touch was in some way sullying her.

That she was beautiful, there was no doubt; the fact that she had proved herself to be intelligent and well spoken, thoughtful and incisive, increased his admiration of her tenfold.

But she was right; they had only been acquainted for a day. Despite her beauty and intelligence, she may well prove to be an unsuitable companion in other ways. Joanna may not take to her, for example, and he knew that he would never provide his baby girl with a step-mama that she hated. No, he decided, rushing into anything with Lady Christine was ill-advised. He would be prudent, and see is an attachment formed over time.

However, McCoy had not reckoned with his friend.

 

[ ](http://www.xn--smslneguide-08a.se/)  
---  
[sms lån](http://www.xn--smslneguide-08a.se/)


	7. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 4075/59718  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

 

 

_Chapter Seven: Where the Duke of Albany is very bad at trying to be subtle and Lady Christine makes an unusual request._

 

“So, Bones,” Kirk said companionably as he slung himself into a comfortable chair in front of the fire after dinner one evening a few days later. “What do you think of Chrissie?”

McCoy glanced over at Lady Christine, who was sitting on the other side of the room with her sister and Miss Rand. The duchess and Lady Christine were talking animatedly, and Miss Rand was listening and attending to her embroidery. They were paying no attention to the men before the fire.

“I think Lady Christine is an amiable, genteel lady,” McCoy said warily. “Why?”

Kirk made a face.

“Amiable? Genteel? That’s not exactly high praise, Bones.”

“It is from me,” McCoy replied firmly. At Kirk’s pointed look, he sighed and set down the newspaper he had been reading.

“Fine,” he said irritably. “She is intelligent, and good company.”

“Be still my beating heart,” muttered Kirk.

“Jim, I have known her all of one week,” McCoy pointed out. “To make any other judgement of her is impossible, and certainly not polite, especially in public.”

He fixed his friend with a hard stare.

“Why do you want to know?” McCoy said suspiciously. “What do you have planned?”

“Nothing!” Jim said innocently, which only made McCoy _more_ suspicious. Innocence was not a quality that one applied to Jim with any regularity or truthfulness.

After another prolonged glare, Jim sighed and gave in.

“Although it pains me to say this about a woman who has, to date, pushed me into a manure heap, a fountain, two ponds and a thorn bush, she is most attractive. Her face is beautiful and her figure is absolutely splendid.”

Here Jim paused to take in Christine’s splendid figure as she walked to the tea-trolley to pour another cup for her sister. McCoy could not help but follow her path with his eyes also, then caught Jim’s sly glance at him and dived back into his newspaper again.

“If you are so enamoured of her, why don’t you do something about it?” McCoy asked gruffly. “Your mother has been pressing you to marry; Lady Christine seems eminently suitable to be the next Duchess of Albany.”

Jim sighed. “If it were as easy as that, Bones, I would have proposed at the start of the Season and had done with the whole business. No, Chrissie and I decided some years ago that we would not suit, and I must say that the decision was a wise one. She is fond of me, but does not have the respect for me that a wife should have for her husband. And when I look at her, all I see is the ten year old harridan that beat me at archery and saw fit to dunk me in ponds. I am more a brother to her than anything else, and I am glad of it.”

For a moment McCoy thought that Jim was about to continue, but his friend fell silent. It did not take a genius to figure out in which directions his thoughts lay, however, as Kirk cast a look that was full of longing in the direction of Miss Rand.

McCoy sighed.

“Although I know that I will regret saying this,” he said from behind his newspaper, “I should point out to you that you are the Duke of Albany, you know. Pre-eminent peer of the realm and all that rot. If you were to propose to a lady, _any_ lady, there would be very little chance of her turning you down. Society would accept her as your wife; they could hardly do otherwise. Who amongst them would dare cut you?”

“Truly told, Bones, it is the very title that is keeping me from proposing,” Jim said quietly. “If I were simply Mr Kirk with two thousand a year and a simple house, I think that the lady would accept me without a second thought. But the thought of facing society matrons as a duchess is not for the faint of heart. Look at Una. She is one of the strongest women of my acquaintance, and she is spending her first Season here in the countryside rather than in town.”

McCoy, who had noticed the symptoms of the Duchess of Riverside, and had concluded that maternity was impending, kept his mouth shut.

“To ask somebody born to another sphere of life to take on that role is difficult, especially if the lady herself is gentle and quiet in nature,” Jim continued sadly.

McCoy raised an eyebrow behind his newspaper. Governesses, especially successful ones like Miss Rand, were not known for their quiet, meek natures. Given that Joanna had the full inheritance of Jocelyn’s petulance and his own temper, McCoy had a shrewd idea that gentle, quiet Miss Rand was in reality a martinet in a morning gown.

Which, he realised with a secret smile, would be exactly the sort of woman necessary to keep Jim on the right course. He had remonstrated with Jim previously about his fascination with Miss Rand because Jim was a notorious rake, who had cut a swathe through the pretty wives of ton. Those women could fend for themselves, but Miss Rand had no society friends to protect her reputation. She was from a small country village with no connections at all in London, and he felt protective of her reputation; as her employer, it was his duty to defend her from men like Jim.

But if this was more serious than a tumble in an empty guest room, if Jim was actually in possession of real feelings for Miss Rand, then McCoy could think of no reason to oppose the match other than that of the sensibilities of Jim’s mother. She had let him know that she was angling for a match with one of Prinny’s cousins – an HRH in the family was considered a great _coup_ \- and what the Dowager wanted, she got. To tell her that her only son and the heir to the entire Albany fortune wanted to marry a governess of low birth and no family would require more testicular fortitude than most men were in possession of.

The sensible thing to do would be to bow to society’s dictates and look among the daughters of the aristocracy for a woman to wear the duchess’ coronet. However, none of Jim’s plans ever had a lick of sense about them, and they worked every time. More or less.

The sound of the door to the drawing opening and closing got the attention of its occupants. It was the admiral, who had left their number some time earlier to speak to a messenger who had arrived just as dinner had ended.

“I have good news,” he said, as soon as he had reached the centre of the large room. “That was a messenger from London. Our royal guests will be arriving in Bristol in three days time, and will be with us on the fourth. The Vulcanian ambassador is already in London, and will travel to arrive on the same day as the rest of them.”

“About time,” Jim said cheerfully.

“Everything is in place to receive them,” Una told her husband. “Mrs Barrett has reported that the servants are ready to welcome the retinues of our guests, although Cook is having conniptions of the thought of catering for foreign palates. Somebody told her that all the Japanese will eat is raw fish, and she nearly cried.”

“Their servants will eat what they eat, which will be the usual fare,” the duke stressed. “There will be no raw fish for anybody except the cat.”

There was some laughter in the room. Una went on to detail the arrangements, but they were simple enough with her well-trained staff. The most sumptuous room in the ladies wing of the house, that Christine should have been using, was being kept for the Princess Nyota. Similarly, the best rooms in the wing for single gentlemen had been reserved for the Japanese, Russian and Vulcanian princes. Una had drawn up plans for all sorts of both indoor and outdoor amusements, to break up hours of negotiation over trade and political discussions.

“I shall spend most of my time curtseying,” said Christine good-humouredly. “What with all this royalty about, I shall feel quite sea-sick from bobbing up and down all the time.”

“I have only met the Princess before, but she seemed most easy with her manners,” her brother in law assured her. “I am sure that she will not stand upon ceremony unduly.”

“I have met the Vulcanian ambassador previously,” Christine said. “He wasn’t exactly what you would call friendly, but he and I had a quite civil discussion.”

“What on earth could you have to talk about?” Jim said, curling his lip. “I’ve met him before. He’s such a dull stick.”

“We talked of Jenner,” Christine said firmly.

“Edward Jenner?” McCoy asked, surprised to hear the eminent scholar being mentioned by the beautiful young woman.

Christine nodded. “His royal highness recommended a book, a copy of the report Jenner recently made to the Royal Society. I have been reading it recently.”

“How have you found it?” McCoy asked, interested in her opinion. “I bought a copy just before I left London and read it in the coach on the journey here.”

“I must admit that a portion of it surpassed my understanding,” Christine said, obviously annoyed at the deficiency in her education. “But that which I could follow seemed most interesting. Are you interested in vaccination, my lord?”

“I am,” he replied gravely. “If they had been vaccinated against smallpox, Joanna’s mother and grandfather would still be alive. If the process is as safe as Dr Jenner suggests, I believe that as many people should vaccinated as possible.”

Christine blanched. “I am sorry, my lord,” she said quietly. “I should not have spoken on the subject.”

“It is of no matter,” McCoy said gruffly, waving off her apology. While he had mourned his father honestly, he mourned the loss of Jocelyn more for the sake of his daughter than for his own. “I believe that Doctor Jenner is resident in Gloucestershire. I had planned on writing him a letter, and asking him if he would consent to a visit.”

Lady Christine’s eyes regained their sparkle.

“I would dearly love to meet him,” she said excitedly. “Please write, Lord Arundel.”

“An outing to the countryside would be a nice excursion for our guests,” mused Una. “Perhaps two birds would be killed with one stone – you could visit with your esteemed doctor, and we could picnic afterwards.”

“It would certainly interest Spock, and I seem to recall that the Russian prince is of a scientific bent,” the admiral concluded. “You must write, Arundel, and see when Dr Jenner will receive us.”

“I would have thought that the party would give his poor wife a fit of the vapours,” remarked Kirk. “Three princes, two dukes and an earl, as well as a princess, a duchess and two other ladies, all in her best parlour?”

“Don’t forget Joanna,” warned McCoy. “I want to have her vaccinated, although I beg you all not to mention it to her. I fear she will take on at the thought of it.”

“I think that I would like to be vaccinated also,” Miss Rand said suddenly, quite shocking the company. Although she routinely attended meals with the rest of the household and sat with them after dinner, she rarely spoke in front of the whole group, preferring to converse with Lady Christine, who was becoming quite a particular friend, or the duchess.

At the surprised look of the rest of the company she blushed a little, but carried on bravely.

“I lost both my parents to smallpox; if, God forbid, I were to contract the disease it would leave my brothers quite alone in the world. If Lord Arundel thinks it safe enough a procedure for Lady Joanna, then I would appreciate the chance to be vaccinated also.”

“I didn’t know you had brothers,” Jim said into the silence of the room. “Are they younger than yourself?”

“Yes, your Grace,” she replied, looking down at her embroidery. “Robert is fourteen, and Henry eleven. They are at school presently, and they live with my father’s aunt when down for the holidays.”

“When was the last time you saw them?” Jim asked.

“Two years ago, your Grace,” Miss Rand said carefully. “But we correspond regularly.”

“Two years!” said Jim, aggrieved. “What, not even on Christmas?”

“They live many miles away, in Cornwall,” Miss Rand replied. “By the time I reached there, it would be time to return to London. It does not signify, my lord. They are happy, and do not miss me. Besides, there is Lady Joanna to consider.”

Jim said nothing, for fear of mortifying her further, but he cast a baleful glance at McCoy, blaming him with a single look for the distance between Miss Rand and her family, the length of the Christmas holiday period, the state of the House of Commons and the price of sugar.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, and the admiral saw to break it by asking his wife how the great sewing project was coming along. It was a source of great merriment to him that his mother in law had sent so large a quantity of fine quality materials to his house. The sight of a veritable battalion of women arriving at Berkely a week previously, ready to cut and stitch clothes for his wife and her sister, had caused much laughter. Una reported, with great satisfaction, that they were well on the way to a wardrobe of complete elegance that would rival any of the patronesses of Almacks.

“I don’t suppose they could run up a waistcoat or two, could they?” Jim asked, peering down at his current favourite, a gold silk creation. “With all of your finery, I’m worried that I’ll be under-dressed.”

“There is a wonderful crimson that’s just the thing,” Christine told him, a small smile threatening the calm composure of her face. “It’ll bring out the red of your eyes.”

“Christine!” Una scolded. “You’re not ten years old anymore. You cannot say such things in front of our company.”

“Have no fear, my manners will be all that they ought,” her sister reassured her. “But I could not resist.”

Una sighed heavily.

“Jim, get your valet to speak to Mrs Barrett, the housekeeper. I’m sure that something can be arranged.”

“Speaking of your valet, Jim,” the admiral interrupted. “Roddenberry has informed me that he’s asked if he could have the use of a small outbuilding as some kind of workroom while he’s here. Is there any reason I should say no?”

“Admiral, if you let Scott have a workroom I can promise you that he’ll have revolutionised some part of your house by the time we leave,” Jim chuckled. “He’s already invented a way of making coach rides feel as smooth as silk, even on bumpy country roads, and he has some contraption in Albany House that produces ice by the bucket load in minutes.”

“Of course, he has also caused six kitchen fires while trying to produce a more efficient way to toast bread,” McCoy pointed out. He was still irritable about the last one; Scott had been tinkering in the middle of the night, and the whole house had been evacuated into the cold in their nightwear. It was very difficult to remain stately and dignified when in a nightshirt and slippers in the middle of Piccadilly.

“The ice machine was of great use in that instance,” Jim argued, and McCoy rolled his eyes and went back behind his newspaper.

“Perhaps one of the more distant outbuildings,” the admiral said thoughtfully, and the matter was adjourned.

It was decided that the admiral and Jim should go to meet the visiting royalty with their carriages, to show respect for the position of the royal dignitaries by sending two dukes to accompany them back to Berkely Hall. The duchess was to remain at the house, with her sister and Lord Arundel, in case the Vulcanian prince arrived before the Bristol delegation returned home.

Una spent the best part of the morning pacing in front of the windows of a small parlour that was not usually in use. It was cold and not particularly well decorated, but it did boast a view of the sweeping drive, and would allow her to know when her guests arrived minutes before Roddenberry could get a message to her.

Christine, aware of the stress that this visit was putting on her sister at such a delicate time, spent the morning co-ordinating with the housekeeper over the hundreds of last minute decisions regarding the furnishing of the royal suites, the location of the foreign servants’ bedchambers, tweaks to the menu to accommodate the fact that slugs had got into the blackberry bushes and ruined dessert and the order of precedence.

It was the last that was giving her such a headache; Christine, like all ladies of her station, had the order of precedence for British royalty and nobility firmly drummed into her by her governess. She could plan a table and instruct staff for any combination of British nobles, but the vastly different foreign social structures confused her. Both the Russian and the Japanese princes were styled their imperial highness, compared to the royal highness used by the African and Vulcanian guests. Did that mean that they had precedence? But the Vulcanian prince was the heir to the throne, while the Japanese and Russian princes were members of cadet branches of their royal lines; should Prince Spock take precedence at table? Then there was Princess Nyota to consider; she came from a matriarchal society, and was a daughter of the ruling queen – she would be used to being considered the most important person in any room she was in. There were no rules regarding royal women of independent power that Christine had ever learned – their last queen was Anne, now dead these last hundred years.

It was, in short, a great problem, and one that was making Roddenberry, usually so unflappable, flap wildly. She was peering at a seating chart with the butler in the breakfast room when Lord Arundel entered.

“Am I late?” he asked, glancing down the empty table.

“No, my lord,” Christine said, rubbing her temple as she scratched her pencil through yet another botched placement. “The arrival of our guests had prompted an earlier than usual start.”

“Ah,” said McCoy, helping himself from the serving platters. “That explains it. What are you working on there?”

“We are trying to work out how to avoid offending anybody at dinner,” Christine said, wishing she could throw the blasted paper into the fire that was blazing cheerily in the hearth. “A fact not made easy by the fact we have five nationalities, four different titles and not nearly enough women.”

She glared at the paper again, as if willing the hopelessly confused scribbles to dance around neatly and order themselves.

“You should do as King Arthur did,” McCoy said, trying to make her smile. “Sit everyone around a round table, precedence be damned.”

Christine stared at him open-mouthed, looked down at her seating plan again, and beamed at him.

“No wonder Jim rates you so highly, sir,” she said with great admiration. “You are indeed a genius.”

McCoy reddened a little at such undeserved praise, but Christine had turned away from him and faced Roddenberry instead.

“Roddenberry, somewhere upstairs there is a room with an incredibly large round table in it, a massive mahogany piece with matching chairs. The legs are carved with mythical beasts, and it has the most gorgeous marble inlay. I found it accidentally when I was looking for the library.”

Roddenberry nodded.

“I know the room you speak of, my lady, and the table.”

“Organise the footmen to move the table down to the dining room along with the chairs, and place the table from the dining room into storage somewhere. Tell Mrs Barrett to get her maids dusting and polishing it as we’ll be using it for all our meals together.”

“Very good, my lady,” Roddenberry said, looking relieved. A round table at dinner would mean serving would be a lot easier for his staff. He left to deliver his orders, and soon the sound of busy voices could be heard starting the laborious process of dismantling and removing the heavy oak table of the dining room.

“I had meant it as a joke, you know,” McCoy said gruffly. “Will her Grace not mind you shifting the furniture about?”

“In the state she’s in at the moment, she probably won’t notice until we sit down to eat,” Christine said absently. “I do wish she would rest more, but she’s wearing a hole in the carpet at the moment with her pacing. All this fuss and worry can’t be good for the...”

Christine stopped herself just in time, but a panicky look at McCoy told her that there was at least one other person in the house who knew of her sister’s pregnancy.

“I have not told anyone that your sister is expecting a baby,” he hurriedly assured her. “But to a medical man, her symptoms are quite telling.”

“That and the fact that she’s pulling the nursery apart,” Christine said ruefully.

“Well, that was a large clue,” McCoy replied, looking relieved at the fact that she was not upset.

“Truly told, I am glad that you know,” Christine confessed. “I know that we have only been of a few weeks’ acquaintance, Lord Arundel, but I hope you do not think it too forward of me when I tell you that I am grateful that we have a medical doctor of your intellect and ability here. Christopher thinks highly of you, and Jim is convinced that you hung the moon. Una is my only sister and my closest friend. God forbid anything untoward occur, but...”

She trailed off, and smiled tremulously.

“Just knowing that you are in the house brings me much peace of mind,” she finished quietly.

McCoy stepped forward and offered her his hand, an unconscious gesture of support that she accepted immediately. His large hand closed over her smaller one, gentle but strong.

“If there is anything I can ever do to be of service to you or the duchess, you must ask, immediately,” he told her earnestly. “I mean this, Lady Christine, any task at all.”

“Do you mean that?” she asked, her blue eyes narrowing thoughtfully.

“I do,” he said firmly. “Anything at all. You have my word.”

“Good,” she said brightly. “I find myself shockingly uneducated on the whole subject of pregnancy. I would appreciate it if you would enlighten me.”

It was worth the impropriety of the question to see the look of horror break out over his face.

She waited as long as she dared, and then said, “Of course, I am in possession of the basic facts; my father is a biologist, remember, and I have a completely inappropriate lady’s maid who is an education in and of herself. But I lack knowledge about the development of the child, and the birth process.”

He looked less flustered now that he would not have to explain to the daughter of one of the richest men in the country how babies were made, although his colour was still too pale for comfort.

“You did say anything,” she reminded him.

“I did,” he responded, a small smile forming now that the shock was wearing off.

“I want to be useful,” she told him earnestly. “And I cannot help Una if I do not understand her...situation.”

“Very well,” McCoy agreed. “You will no doubt be busy in the first few days of these talks. But when things have settled down a little, and you are not needed, we will sit and I will answer your questions on the subject to the best of my ability.”

“I will hold you to your promise, my lord,” Christine warned him. “If you will excuse me, I have to find the housekeeper and apologise for shifting furniture about today of all days.”

He nodded, and seemed to realise belatedly that he still had hold of her hand. He let go and she immediately missed the warmth of it. She nodded at him, slightly awkwardly, and went off to find Mrs Barrett.

[ ](http://www.drdating.com/)  
---  
[dating advice](http://www.drdating.com/dating/advice/)


	8. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 7500/62857  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Chapter Eight: Where royalty descend on Berkely Hall, and Lady Christine takes a walk in her night gown._

The carriages from Bristol arrived several hours later, in time for luncheon. They must have made a fine procession through the countryside; two coaches bearing ducal arms and a fleet of hired conveyances containing luggage and servants. So much for secrecy, McCoy thought wryly, as the majority of the coaches headed straight for the back of the house to be unloaded. Already he could see dark-skinned African servants attending their princess, and a similar retinue of Japanese servants fussing around their prince. The servants of Berkely Hall, who had turned out in smart formation to welcome their master and his guests home, tried their best not to stare at their exotic counterparts. During his travels with the Admiral, McCoy had visited many countries and met men and women of varying nationalities, languages and creeds. He considered himself to be immune to the novelty of meeting a human with skin shades darker than his own. But to the servants here at Berkely, many of them never having travelled more than five miles from the village of their birth, the new visitors may as well have come from the moon.

The servants of the Russian princeling, for to McCoy he barely looked older than an infant, had familiar pale skin, but their guttural language was completely alien to the waiting Gloucestershire men and women. Although they were all on their best behaviour, McCoy noted various attitudes of interest and discomfort play through the faces of the staff. The duchess would spend a lot of her time soothing ruffled feathers, if he was any judge, and that task would probably have to be shouldered by Lady Christine as well.

Introductions were made; Princess Nyota, out of deference to her sex, was introduced first. She greeted the duchess as if she were her equal, and Lady Christine in the same manner. She presented her hand to McCoy in the European style, and he bowed over it smartly, adding his own greetings to her. It was then that Princess Nyota endeared herself to him forever by taking a step back, peering up at one of the windows of the house, and waving to Joanna, who was ensconced in a window seat and watching the arrival avidly.

Joanna waved back eagerly, and looked at the elegant princess with stars in her eyes.

“Is that your daughter, your Grace?” the princess asked Una, who replied in the negative and directed her back to McCoy.

“I think that you have made her year,” McCoy told her truthfully. “She has talked of little but seeing a princess since she learnt of your visit.”

“I must meet her, my lord,” Princess Nyota declared. “In the royal court at home, daughters are encouraged to be both seen and heard. I have many younger sisters, and I miss them terribly.”

“You are most kind, your highness,” McCoy told her. “I will introduce Joanna to you as soon as she has completed her lessons for the day.”

They fell to discussing Joanna’s education while the Russian and Japanese princes bowed over the hands of the duchess and Lady Christine. McCoy watched from the corner of his eye as the handsome Japanese prince lingered over the hand of Lady Christine, who sank into a suitable curtsey and murmured something too low for him to hear. He felt a frown flicker over his face, but then immediately smoothed it out. It would not do for the princess to think that he was unhappy with her company.

Jim stepped in to escort the princess and her retinue into the house, and McCoy was able to be presented to the two princes. He bowed his head to the Japanese prince, who nodded to him coolly, but was surprised to find the young Russian prince sticking out his hand and shaking McCoy’s enthusiastically. It was hard not to smile at the engaging young man, whose serious and sober clothing, a regimental uniform of the Russian army, was topped off by a riot of curly hair and a beaming smile.

The guests were shown to their rooms by a very dignified Roddenberry, and it was agreed that the gong for luncheon would be rung in an hour, giving them time to rest and freshen up before a light meal and a tour of the house.

“This is a light meal?” Jim asked, in awe, as he took in the groaning platters of food that were displayed on tables in the small parlour that Una used a luncheon room. There were both cold and hot dishes, a variety of finger foods, sliced meats and cheeses and enough desserts to feed everybody three times over.

“I believe that it is Cook’s way of showing off her skills,” Una told him. “For the love of God, eat something or she’ll be mortally offended.”

As this was an informal meal there was no need to worry about precedence, and people ate either standing or sitting on one of the pretty chairs that Una had ordered made for the room. Everybody ate hungrily, with the Russian prince having three helpings of everything, and four of dessert.

Jim immediately engaged the young man in conversation, and they chattered happily as they both stuffed their faces. McCoy had though Jim was a prodigious eater before, but he had never seen anyone as slender as the Russian eat so much.

The Admiral engaged the Japanese prince in a discussion of the art of sword making, which was apparently of interest of both of them. McCoy had attended a viewing of Japanese armour and weapons a year or so ago, and found himself joining their conversation. The prince was well informed on the subject and they were able to pass the time together tolerably well, although McCoy couldn’t help but notice the way Lady Christine kept glancing in their direction. Despite his decision to tread carefully when thinking of her, McCoy couldn’t help but be irritated by the thought of her interest in another man.

Lady Christine had sat with her sister and the princess, and they had spent the time talking amiably. McCoy was not close enough to hear their conversation, but he could guess that it centred around the usual feminine concerns – gowns and children. That could be why Lady Christine looked slightly bored, although she hid it well.

Their last guest arrived halfway through luncheon, and the Duke and Duchess went to receive him, leaving Christine behind to act as hostess and see to the comfort of their guests. They returned later with the Vulcanian prince, Spock. He was a tall, dark-haired man with a sallow complexion that McCoy guessed was due to the mixing of his mother’s English blood with that of her Vulcanian husband’s. It was easy to know Spock’s heritage, for he had inherited the curious ears of the Vulcanian royal line. He kept his hair long to cover them, but every so often, as he moved his head, their pointed tips became visible.

The princess let out a small gasp when the prince entered the room; clearly his presence at the talks was a surprise to her. It was obvious that this was not their first meeting, as both clearly recognised the other. The prince’s face was the usual Vulcanian blank, but the princess could not help but show a brief flash of longing and regret mar her perfect features. He greeted her in what McCoy assumed to be Swahili. They conversed for a short while in this language before Spock made the rounds of the other guests, but no matter where he was in the room, his eyes always made their way back faithfully to her side.

He declined any food, and it was soon decided that a tour of the house was in order. Despite having been resident in the house for over a week, McCoy still only had a very vague idea about where all the rooms were located. Feeling bold, McCoy swiftly moved closer to Lady Christine, and offered her his arm. She accepted it with a smile, and together they followed the crowd through the tour of the downstairs rooms, making up the back of the party.

The guests dutifully admired the great hall, still bearing the architecture of the abbey that had stood there for hundreds of years. Tall columns reached up into the vaulted ceilings, and alcoves containing curios and small loveseats ran the length of the room. Stained glass windows, both original to the abbey and made to replace those smashed during the Reformation, were set high into the walls and the sunlight from outside beamed splashes of colour into the room. Although the furnishings were bright and cheery and somehow a previous inhabitant had managed to convert part of the abbey into a working fireplace, it was not a comfortable room. It was too big, and already chilly despite it being midday, and spring.

“The library is through that door there,” Lady Christine told McCoy, indicating a large oak door that looked to be an original fixture of the abbey.

“Does it have heat?” he asked, and Lady Christine laughed.

“There is a very comfortable fireplace,” she assured him, and they opened the door to display the room to the visitors and take advantage of the blaze in the fireplace. The room itself was of a large size, and great shelves of books created labyrinth-like pathways through the collections of the previous owners of the house. Some of the more precious books were displayed in glass cabinets, and the guests browsed them as they examined the shelves and looked out of the windows and down into the well maintained grounds.

They did not linger over-long in the library, and instead made their way through more finely decorated corridors to the conservatory. It had been built, at great expense, from hundreds of panes of glass, and the subsequent heat allowed the head gardener of the estate to grow plants and flowers that could only usually be found in the tropics. The warmth of the room was a great relief after the chill of the great hall, and the ladies looked visibly happier. McCoy almost regretted coming into the room; without registering her action, Lady Christine had drawn closer to him during their spell in the great hall and the library and now she moved away. He had enjoyed the gentle press of her body to his. The beautiful dress she wore, a deep turquoise shade, was made of a thin silk and had not been thick enough to protect her from the chill.

“Ah, orchids!”

Everyone turned to where Prince Hikaru was standing. A long table ran down the side of the room, displaying a wide variety of the delicate flowers.

“You have a good collection, your Grace,” the prince said to the duke, who looked at the flowers in a slightly confused manner.

“Thank you for the compliment, your highness, but I’m afraid they’ve nothing to do with me. They must be the collection of the gardener. I know that he has an interest in exotic blooms.”

“He is a very skilful worker. It is very hard to produce such colours as he has here; my own attempts have not been as successful.”

Una pounced on this conversation starter as a cat leaps on a mouse; before Prince Hikaru could blink he was being escorted through the conservatory by the duchess who was begging him to tell her what he knew about the plants around them. That turned out to be a great deal, and the rest of the party fell in behind them to take advantage of the prince’s knowledge. He pointed out flowers that had edible petals, which Jim immediately had to try, and plants that could be dangerous if ingested by animals or children. The duke signalled for a gardener, and the plants were immediately removed to a more secure area; with Lady Joanna around, and the prospect of children in the future, he wasn’t about to take any chances.

Prince Hikaru was incredibly impressed when they rounded a corner and found, of all things, a collection of pineapple bushes, all bearing fruit. The head gardener was tending them, and once he got over the shock of a Japanese prince questioning him eagerly about soil types and moisture levels, the two began to chat quite happily.

“I have never seen a pineapple before,” the Russian prince said, touching the hard outer covering of the fruit curiously. “How do you eat one?”

The gardener promptly produced a dangerously sharp knife, plucked a large example of the fruit from the bush and cut it into neat segments. Una declined, fearing for the state of her dress with the juice of the fruit, and Princess Nyota was still too full from luncheon to try anything else. Prince Spock also declined, the fruit growing wild in his home country, but the rest of the party eagerly tasted the pineapple.

“It’s like eating sunshine,” Lady Christine declared. Prince Pavel ate another two segments and agreed with her.

The pineapple was only half eaten, so Una asked that the rest be sent up to Lady Joanna and Miss Rand as an afternoon snack. The gardener reserved the top, with its sharp leaves, to plant back into the soil to start another bush. That led to another round of questions, and a promise that the new plant would go with Prince Hikaru after his visit had concluded.

It was with regret that they managed to prise the prince from the room, but they went from the conservatory outside into the gardens. They walked in the opposite direction from the river and the lake, and instead headed towards the stables to view the horses. As they were passing a collection of small stone buildings, a loud explosion was heard from the one most distant, and curls of black smoke emerged from the open windows.

The reaction of the party was instantaneous. Jim, Prince Hikaru and Prince Pavel all immediately started at speed towards the little building. McCoy had thrown his arms around Lady Christine and spun her around, shielding her body with his. The admiral had done the same thing for the duchess, while the Vulcanian prince had planted himself firmly in the path of Princess Nyota, shielding her slender body with his own.

“Are you alright?” McCoy asked the woman in his arms, who he noted was neither shaking with shock nor clutching at him in alarm, like the other two women were doing. Instead her hands had come up to cover his, and she was straining to see over his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “But whoever was in that building probably isn’t. You should go and see if they need your help.”

McCoy nodded at the wisdom of her words and released his grip on her. She immediately crossed to her sister who looked a little unsteady. Lady Christine spoke quietly to the princess, and together they escorted Una back towards the house, freeing up the duke and Prince Spock to help investigate the disturbance.

“The duchess,” McCoy began as the men began to jog towards the scene of the explosion.

“She’s just a little shaken,” the duke said. “Her sister is taking care of her. But, if you would, McCoy...”

“I’ll examine her later, if she is feeling unwell.” McCoy promised.

By now Jim had reached the door of the small outbuilding and yanked it open. The two princes dived in after him, and thirty seconds later they all came barrelling out of the room dragging a blackened, singed figure with them. McCoy slowed to a walk when he heard familiar Scottish tones cursing.

“I think I know wha’ I did wrong, ya Grace. A wee bit too much of the old nitro glycerine. Have no fear, the next time I’ll ge’ it right.”

“What were you trying to do?”

The Russian prince extended a hand to the valet and handed him to his feet. Scott promptly launched into a bow and started to babble incoherently in scientific-speak to the prince, who nodded eagerly and responded in kind. The others looked on in incomprehension as both men began to gesticulate wildly.

“We are in no mortal danger?” asked the admiral dryly.

“No your Grace, my apologies, your Grace, but it’s all just smoke. There’s no harm been done. I know what I did wrong now, though.”

“Well, as long as you learned something,” the admiral replied, amused at the cheerfulness of a man that had lost three quarters of his eyebrows in the quest for scientific discovery.

“I would very much like to witness your next experiment,” the Prince Pavel told Scott. “I was working on something very similar in St Petersburg before I was sent here.”

“What happened to your experiment, you highness?” Jim asked, beating soot from his breeches.

“I too made a slight miscalculation with the amount of nitro glycerine required to initiate the combustive phase of the process,” the young man replied, sounding slightly embarrassed.

“Did you burn down your laboratory also?” Prince Hikaru asked him.

“Yes,” Prince Pavel replied sheepishly. “Also, the entire wing of the Winter Palace it was housed in. My kinsman, the Tsar, was not very happy.”

For the sake of propriety, the men tried to keep a straight face, but as usual Jim was the first to give his emotions full rein. He started to laugh, which set the Admiral’s face twitching. Prince Pavel laughed good naturedly at his catastrophic mistake, which allowed McCoy and Prince Hikaru to join in. Only Prince Spock, with his Vulcanian training in emotional control, refrained from the hilarity.

They were joined moments later by a stampede of servants, all convinced that death and destruction were looming on Berkely Hall.

“We are fine, Roddenberry,” the Admiral assured his butler, just as the princes were informing their own servants in their own tongues. “Send word to the Duchess that it was a minor accident and there is nobody hurt.”

“Very good, your Grace,” Roddenberry said doubtfully, casting an affronted glance at Scott.  
It was decided that there had been enough excitement for one day, and the rest of the tour was postponed for another time. As the ladies had retired to the house, the men retreated there also, to sample the Admiral’s fine collection of brandies, which McCoy pronounced just the thing for unsettled nerves. Scott was left to bring order back to the chaos of his makeshift laboratory, with the aid of several buckets of water and a mop.

Despite Christine’s concerns, Una soon settled down when they got her back to the privacy of her bedchamber. Christine sent Barry, her sister’s personal maid, down to the kitchen to fetch hot chocolate. Hot chocolate was their mother’s cure for every illness and injury, both perceived and real, and as soon as Una sipped at the rich liquid colour appeared back in her cheeks.

Not long after they had started to drink their chocolate, Roddenberry appeared with the news that the accident was non-lethal and there was no harm done to anything except the eyebrows of the valet of the Duke of Albany. Una dismissed him with thanks, and started to apologise to the princess for the disruption of the day.

The beautiful African woman waved a graceful hand as if she were batting away Una’s apologies.

“There is no need to apologise, your Grace,” she said firmly. “This was an accident, and nobody can be blamed for accidents. This is a charming room,” she added, looking about the large chamber. Her intelligent eyes noted the distinctly masculine cast of some of the furniture, and the wardrobes designed for male clothing. “Although I do not believe that you picked all of the furnishings yourself.”

“No, your highness,” Una agreed, still drinking her hot chocolate. “Some of these pieces were made by the former ship’s carpenter of the HMS _Enterprise_ for my husband as a wedding-gift.”

Princess Nyota looked puzzled.

“Forgive me, your Grace, but I thought it was the custom of European nobility to maintain separate bedrooms.”

“It is,” Una agreed, “but Christopher dislikes the idea, and I agree with him. We are so busy in our daily routines that sometimes the only chance we have to talk is over the dinner table or in before we sleep. I should not want a day to go past without having the chance to converse with my husband.”

“In my culture, a man waits to be asked to his wife’s bed,” the princess told them. “He must be asked each night, and never presume that he has the right to sleep there.”

“Gosh,” Lady Christine said, her interest piqued. “Why has that custom arisen?”

“My lady mother tells me that it is because husbands invariably snore,” Princess Nyota replied, her dark eyes twinkling with humour. “And some nights, all a woman needs is a good night’s sleep.”

The women laughed, and Lady Christine thought favourably of the African princess sitting opposite her, slender and attractive in clothes of distinctly European design. The lady’s dress had disappointed Christine when they had met earlier that day. Christine hadn’t known exactly what she had been expecting, but the idea of an African princess had conjured up vague thoughts of leopard skin and general... _foreignness_. Apart from the deep brown colour of her skin, so different to Christine’s paleness, and a slight hint of an accent, the lady would have passed for a member of the _ton_ very easily.

“Of course,” the princess continued, as lightly as if she were discussing the Paris fashions. “In my culture, a woman may have many husbands, if she wishes. Some level of organisation is needed to avoid...embarrassing situations.”

Christine’s eyebrows hit her hairline, and Una choked on her hot chocolate. All of the questions that were jostling each other for space in her mind were firmly quenched by Una seizing hold of the conversation and determinedly forcing it onto another, less shocking, subject. The amused gleam in Princess Nyota’s eyes was enough for Christine to understand that she had set out to deliberately shock them, and she smiled back at the princess. Something told her that there was every chance that they could become very good friends.

“Have you known Prince Spock for very long?” Una asked, trying to bring the conversation back to a suitable level of decorum.

“We met several years ago, in Lisbon,” the princess said, suddenly very interested in stirring the hot chocolate in her cup.

“My, how exotic, I have never travelled out of the country,” sighed Christine. “I should so like to see something of the world. Was the prince there representing Vulcania?”

“No, he was on his Grand Tour,” the princess replied. “He was not there as a representative of his country, although a man in his position always is, in a way.”

She sounded incredibly sad, far more so than somebody who was talking about an acquaintance. A quick glance at Una confirmed Christine’s suspicions; clearly, they both thought that the relationship between the prince and princess was far deeper than she was revealing. Christine felt very sad for her, and pitied the princess for her lost love.

That thought lasted Christine all the way until dinner, when she changed her mind and wished wholeheartedly that the visiting princess would go back to Africa and her many potential husbands and stay there.

The whole party had gathered for a pre-dinner drink in one of the house’s grandest chambers while they waited for Roddenberry to announce that dinner was served. Christine had suffered through hours of primping by Gaila, and had been surprised to discover, once she was allowed to look in the mirror, that for once she actually looked...elegant. The gown she wore, a sheath of azure silk, did something to her figure that turned her womanly curves into something far more dangerous and seductive. Gaila had fussed with her hair, artfully curling here and there to create a fashionable look. A small dab of perfume, an ever small brush of cosmetics that her mother didn’t know that she owned and she was ready for the evening.

She was glad she had made the effort to suffer Gaila’s commands to keep still and not complain when she saw the other women already gathered in the room. Her sister looked radiant in a gown of emerald green, her slender figure not yet showing any sign of her condition. Miss Rand, sitting shyly a distance away from the main party, was positively edible in a dress made of the palest pink that would have made Christine looked washed out. But on Miss Rand the delicacy of the hue brought out the natural roses in her cheeks, reminding one of a painting by Fragonard. Indeed, the lady happened to be sitting underneath one of the artist’s better paintings, and she rivalled the porcelain skinned, doll-like subject, a fact that Christine was sure that she was completely unaware of. Princess Nyota was holding court at the far end of the room, absolutely resplendent in a gown of crimson silk, the bold colour being perfect for her dark colouring.

Christine’s eyes narrowed as she watched the men in the room buzz around her like drones around a queen bee. The Russian prince had to remember to shut his mouth when she addressed comments to him, so enamoured he was of her beauty. The Vulcanian prince stood gravely at her side remaining quiet as she charmed the rest of the group with her conversation. She even had Lord Arundel dancing attendance on her, Christine noticed jealously, then stopped and checked herself. She was being ridiculous. She had no claim on the earl’s attention, and it wasn’t every day you got to converse with an African princess. She couldn’t blame him for being fascinated with her.

Still, she did feel a small jolt of pleasure when Roddenberry announced that dinner was served, and the handsome Japanese prince appeared at her side to escort her in. She didn’t think she was imagining the small ripple of displeasure that crossed the earl’s handsome features.

However, her brief moment of smugness disappeared when the party saw their round table.

“Oh, it is perfect!” said the princess, clapping her hands. “Such a clever idea. Now we won’t have to worry about precedence. Well done, your Grace.”

She laid a hand on Una’s arm, who had just come through the main doors with Prince Spock.

“I must admit, this was all Christine’s idea,” Una confessed, looking at the beautifully set table.

The group turned to Christine, who simply couldn’t lie.

“If Lord Arundel hadn’t mentioned the Round Table of King Arthur, the thought would never have occurred,” Christine admitted.

“Well, it seems that I must congratulate you, my lord,” the princess said, smiling. “Come, sit with me and tell me all about your daughter.”

And like one of his blasted sheep, the earl followed the princess to the opposite side of the dinner table. Prince Spock moved quickly to take the seat on the other side of her.  
Jim, who had somehow ended up escorting Miss Rand, squired her off to another part of the table. The Admiral, never one for the formality of the _ton_ , took the opportunity to steal his wife away to sit down. This left Christine with either the botany-loving Japanese prince, or the Russian prince that liked to blow up wings of royal palaces. As she was still on the Japanese prince’s arm, she allowed him to place her at the table, and then she watched in amazement as the Russian prince proceeded to monopolise his conversation for the rest of the dinner. And of course, she was opposite the earl and the princess, who barely paid attention to the meal as they discussed the raising of children and the importance of educating daughters for the entirety of the eight courses.

Clearly Cook was going all-out to impress the royal guests; Christine was going to have to seriously reduce the amount she took at each meal if she was going to return to London still in possession of a waistline.

Roddenberry oversaw the tall and handsome footmen who moved noiselessly around the table, offering choice cuts of meat, portions of baked fish, sweet seasonal vegetables and glass after glass of delicious wine.

Christine was going to have to cut back on the wine, also.

The wine seemed to have gone to the head of the young Russian prince, whose cheeks were flushed red and whose eyes were shining brightly.

“Your Grace, I have a suggestion. No, an innovation,” he corrected himself. “In the spirit of Lady Christine and her round table.”

“Go ahead, your royal highness,” the Admiral said, smiling.

“It is that very thing, all these highnesses and Graces,” the prince said, waving his hand dismissively and almost splashing Miss Rand’s pink dress with the red wine in his glass. “We are all people of distinction. Surely we do not need to be reminded of that, every time we open our mouths? So, I propose that for the time that we spend here in your beautiful house we abandon these clumsy titles. I am Pavel, and I would be honoured if you called me as such.”

The Admiral beamed at the young man.

“Very well, Pavel. I am Christopher.”

“This should make the whole thing much easier,” said Jim happily. “I’m Jim, and this is Janice.”

Miss Rand looked panicked at the thought of having to address anybody in the august company by their Christian name, but the Russian prince seemed not to notice as he greeted them solemnly. Una gamely followed her husband’s lead, so Christine did likewise.

“I am Hikaru,” the Japanese prince said, bowing to them formally, and the Vulcanian prince nodded his head curtly and said simply, “Spock.”

“What fun!” the princess said. “I have never attended a party like it. You must all call me Nyota. What a clever idea, Pavel.”

She shot the young man a brilliant smile, and he grinned back, a little unsteadily.

“You must play too, Lord Arundel!” the princess exclaimed. “Come, you must tell me your Christian name.”

“It is Leonard, your royal highness,” the earl said, clearly quite uncomfortable at addressing a princess in such a familiar way.

“Leonard,” the princess said, rolling the word off her tongue. “How delightful. I do not believe I have ever met a Leonard before. But you must call me Nyota, Leonard,” she chided him.

Blushing, the earl repeated the princess’ name, earning him a winning smile from the beautiful woman that made him blush slightly harder.

Christine wanted to stab her with a fork. Looking around the happy table, she noticed that Prince...no, wait, just _Spock_ now, looked as if he was willing to commit murder with a piece of Una’s best cutlery also. How... _interesting_.

 

McCoy was glad when the gentlemen had finished their port and the Admiral decided it was time to return to the ladies in the drawing room. He knew that it was a dreadfully unfashionable sentiment to hold, but he preferred mixed company when the ladies were as intelligent and interesting as the ones here at Berkely Hall.

He had spent a most informative evening talking to the princess about the education of women in her part of Africa. He knew that he was supposed to call her Nyota now, thanks to that damnfool Russian boy’s idea to drop ceremony, but there was no way that he would refer to her as familiarly in the privacy of his own head. And he was more than a little annoyed that other men in the party were referring to Lady Christine in such familiar tones.  
Part of him wanted to be the only one who addressed her in such a way, and that part was growing steadily.

He thought he’d be having competition from the...from _Hikaru_ , he corrected himself. He’d watched, jealously, as Christine had floated into the dining room on the arm of the other man. He handed the princess off to the Admiral gladly, but that had meant he was too late to find his chosen lady. But now as the men joined the women in a snug and cosy drawing room, he noticed with alarm that the Vulcanian prince sought out Lady Christine and kept her captive in conversation for the whole of the evening. From his position next to the prin... _Nyota_ , he could see how the previously taciturn man made Christine smile time after time, and how she seemed genuinely interested in what his rival had to say.

By the time McCoy could extricate himself from the princess, Lady Christine was bidding everybody a goodnight and slipping off to bed. He watched her disappear from the room, Miss Rand close on her heels despite Jim’s pleading eyes, and promised himself that tomorrow, when the majority of their party would be busy in the conference room, he would seek Lady Christine out. Even if it would mean discussing pregnancy.

Suddenly, McCoy found himself in need of an incredibly stiff drink.

 

When Christine awoke for the third time that night, she reluctantly waved goodbye to the thought of sleep. Perhaps she had eaten too much at the dinner table, although it didn’t feel as if she was suffering from indigestion. She lit the candle on her nightstand and peered at the beautifully ornate clock that was sitting there. Half past two in the morning. She poked about the jumble of books piled at the side of the bed, but she had finished them all since arriving at Berkely. She eyed her wrapper and slippers thoughtfully. If she bundled up and moved quietly, she could slip down to the library and find a book from the shelves there. Then she could be back in bed and read until she eventually dozed off. It was a perfect plan. She would just have to be careful that the sound of her door opening and shutting did not wake anybody sleeping in her wing of the house, and that she didn’t go flying down the grand staircase and break her neck.

She debated about actually dressing, but decided against it. Not only would it take too long, but Gaila had confiscated her older, easily worn clothing and replaced it with a veritable mountain of new gowns, all of which required a lady’s maid’s help to put on. Instead she tied the belt of her wrapper firmly around her waist, and prayed that she didn’t meet any men on her nocturnal journey. The garment covered all that needed to be covered, but it was a little on the diaphanous side.

She took her candlestick with her, for even the small amount of light it gave her was a welcome friend in the large and gloomy corridors of Berkely. The moon was not a bright one, and the familiar passageways were cold and unfriendly in the dark of night. She made her way down to the library unheeded, although she moved quickly through the great hall before she caught her death of cold.

The library door was ajar, which surprised her. Roddenberry was a stickler for closed doors, although her presence in the house along with unmarried men had meant that he had been forbidden from closing them completely when she was in a room. She could tell that it pained the butler to have an untidy corridor, and she wished wholeheartedly that the stupid rule could be abandoned. Were men so untrustworthy as to take advantage of a closed door? All the men _she_ knew could be trusted, Christine was sure. Then she remembered Jim, and the hungry look in his eyes when he gazed on Miss Rand, and she changed her mind.

The library looked much bigger in the dark, Christine decided, as she relied on her memory to guide her footsteps to the section that dealt with science and discovery. When she turned the corner to that particular part of the room, she was surprised to find a candelabrum fully lit, sitting alone on a small table. That Roddenberry would never allow, she knew.

“Hello?” she said quietly. “Is there somebody here?”

The sound of a book snapping shut startled her, making her jump and her candle gutter. Footsteps echoed on the parquet floor and a man stepped out of the darkness in front of her.

“Lady Christine?”

She knew that voice, and she couldn’t help but release a sigh of relief.

“Lord Arundel,” she said. “I did not think that there would be anybody else here.”

He stepped further into the light, and she noticed immediately that he was still fully dressed while she was only in her night clothes.

“I found it difficult to sleep tonight,” he said quietly. “So I thought to find something to read.”

“I found myself in the same position,” Christine told him. “Did you find anything good?”

_I am standing in a dark room with an unmarried man wearing only my nightgown and a thin robe,_ Christine thought. _I should be running away as fast as my legs would carry me. Why am I still here, making conversation?_

McCoy cleared his throat and displayed a book of anatomy.

“I was wondering if the library had anything I could use for your desired discussion of childbirth, my lady,” he said looking at her with eyes that Christine could only describe as piercing.

“And did you find anything?” she managed to ask, her voice sounding breathless to her own ears.

“A few basic texts,” he admitted. “At some point there must have been a man of science in charge of the library here. I used these books myself when I began my medical studies. They are quite...graphic. Are you sure that you wish to continue with this topic, my lady?”

There was a pleading look in his eyes now, but Christine wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily. He had promised to talk to her about this as if she were an interested student of anatomy, not an unmarried virgin who swooned at the thought of a wedding night, or the consequences of such nine months later.

“Like I said before, my lord, I am aware of how a child is conceived. _Fully_ aware,” she stressed. “My desire is to understand something that is happening to my sister, who is also my dearest friend. I may one day endure this process myself. Could you imagine undergoing such a huge physical transformation and not wanting to understand every single aspect of it?”

She realised that she sounded like she was begging, and she stopped speaking abruptly. The earl had every right to refuse her request, despite his previous promise. If they were overheard by anybody, the scandal would be enormous.

“I had not considered the topic from that point of view, my lady,” the earl said quietly. “Indeed, I am not sure that many men ever have.”

Christine gave an unladylike snort.

“It is my belief that if it were men who were responsible for the bearing of children, my lord, we would hear of nothing else.”

He let out a bark of laughter, which he quickly subdued. They paused, listening for a sign that they had been overheard, but none was forthcoming. Christine released a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding.

“I concur with you, my lady,” the earl told her, a small smile playing on his lips. “And so I will keep my promise. However, I believe that discretion is necessary for our conversation.”

“I agree,” said Christine, shuddering slightly at the thought of Una discovering she had been talking about such things with the earl. McCoy must have seen her shudder and formed the wrong conclusion, because he immediately undid the buttons on his jacket and slipped it off his shoulders, draping it instead on hers.

“I should not have kept you here in the chill,” he said, berating himself.

Christine immediately felt warmer, although whether it was because of the thick material of the jacket or because of the scrutiny of the handsome man in front of her, she could not say.

“Tomorrow, then?” Christine asked.

“Tomorrow,” he acknowledged. “Or rather, today.”

“It is very late,” Christine said. “I had better select my book and return to my chamber.”

“I will wait,” the earl told her. “It would not do for you to be alone in the dark at this time of night.”

Christine hadn’t been scared of the dark since she was five years old, and opened her mouth to tell him so, but then realised that delaying his departure meant that he got to observe her drifting around the library in his jacket, her night rail and absolutely nothing else.

Christine felt a low warmth far down in her belly, a delicious tingle that danced around the parting of her thighs. Gosh. All that from just wearing the man’s jacket? She moved to a bookshelf she knew contained travelogues and he followed, unwrapping her fingers from her candle stick so he could hold it aloft for her. She trailed her fingers along the leather spines of the book bindings a she stepped along the shelves, the earl following behind her, his breath causing the tendrils of hair that escaped her messy, amateur chignon to tickle the back of her neck.

Suddenly, Christine understood quite how easy it was for a woman to be ruined.

A name embossed in gold caught the light of the candle, and it made her remember an article in the newspaper she had read some years before.

“I think I will try this one,” she decided, pulling the thick tome from the shelf.

“ _Turkish Embassy Letters_ , by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,” McCoy read aloud. “Really?”

He had screwed his nose up in distaste.

“Really,” Christine said firmly. “Did you know that Lady Mary witnessed vaccination at the court of the Emperor in Istanbul? And that she brought the practice back to the English court?”

“She did?” McCoy asked, intrigued.

“She did,” Christine confirmed. “Of course, this was over a hundred years ago; methods have changed, and I daresay that Dr Jenner’s is more reliable. But she did it first, my lord.”

“I would be grateful for the chance to read Lady Mary’s book when you have finished with it,” McCoy told her.

“Then perhaps I should quit the library and return to my room,” Christine told him. “So you may have it all the sooner.”

The earl blew out all the candles except the one that she had used to light her way, plunging the library into almost complete darkness. In the faint light of the flickering candle, she saw him extend a hand to her.

“You will let me escort you to the ladies’ wing,” he said, and with any other man it would have been a question.

Again, Christine bit back the immediate response that she had managed well enough in finding her way downstairs without his help, and that she could return to her room alone without mishap. Part of her longed to correct his misapprehension that she was such a ninny; a cannier part of her brain informed her that, this way, she would be able to spend more time alone in the dark with a handsome man who seemed to be interested in her.

Discretion really was the greater part of valour, sometimes.

She took the proffered hand but instead of placing it on his arm he kept in is larger, warmer one and together they walked slowly, hand in hand, back through the monstrously large great hall, up the grand staircase and through the myriad of corridors to the door that led to the unmarried ladies’ wing. They had not spoken a word during their walk, but Christine had not felt the need to; somehow, silence with earl was for more pleasurable than conversation with any other man of her acquaintance. Even the evening she had spent conversing with the Vulcanian prince paled into insignificance with a silent walk through the halls of Berkely with the earl.

_Oh Lord_ , she thought, amused. _This must be what love feels like for sure._

They parted company at the door to her wing; he refused to take the candle to light his way to bed, but she did make him take back his jacket. The thought of sleeping the rest of the night ensconced in its warmth was tempting, but all it took was the wrong servant to see it in her room and she’d be in a world of trouble. He accepted it reluctantly, silently acknowledging the reason for its return.

They parted with a whispered goodnight, and Christine found her way back to her room untroubled. After her adventure downstairs in the library, she found it unnecessary to read the book she had chosen. She was asleep within moments of her head hitting the pillow, and she dreamed of strong, warm arms embracing her by candlelight.

[ ](http://www.xn--smslneguide-08a.se/)  
---  
[sms lån](http://www.xn--smslneguide-08a.se/)


	9. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. My science in this part is as fictional as the rest of this story! I have no idea about what doctors knew about fertility and childbirth back then, but I'm pretending that McCoy is at the forefront of medical thought.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 7716/62857  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. My science in this part is as fictional as the rest of this story! I have no idea about what doctors knew about fertility and childbirth back then, but I'm pretending that McCoy is at the forefront of medical thought.

_Chapter Nine: Where Lady Christine gets an intimate education and the Duke of Albany gets a rejection._

Despite his nocturnal ramblings, McCoy found himself up and about early the next morning, feeling decidedly happy and cheerful. He sent a message via his valet to Miss Rand, informing her that Joanna was invited to breakfast with the adults as the princess wished to meet her, and hoped that the redoubtable young woman would be able to rein in Joanna’s delight to a suitable degree.

Not all of the party joined took breakfast downstairs; the Admiral, who still kept fleet time, had already eaten and the duchess continued to be indisposed in the morning. Neither the Russian or the Japanese prince was present. The Vulcanian prince was sipping a cup of tea when McCoy entered the room, and Princess Nyota was sitting opposite him, looking lovely in a morning dress of amber silk. Their conversation stopped after he entered the room, then began again, in a language McCoy had never heard before.

McCoy bowed politely and bid them both good morning, then the door swung open again to admit Jim, who held Joanna by the hand. Miss Rand followed behind them, dressed soberly but expensively in a mint green gown that gave her skin a dewy complexion. Joanna was in one of her new dresses, obviously chosen because of the importance of the occasion of eating breakfast with a princess. McCoy made a note to thank the duchess for her generosity, and to find out which of the staff had actually made it, and slip them a little extra. The regal purple set off Joanna’s dark hair perfectly, making her cherry lips stand out against her pale skin.

Joanna ran to him immediately for her morning kiss, and he took her by the hand and led her to the princess’ chair.

“Your royal highness, I would like to present my daughter, Lady Joanna McCoy. Joanna, this is the Princess Nyota Uhura of the Alliance of East Africa.”

Joanna bobbed a clumsy curtsey, and took a step closer to the comfort of her father’s leg, now nervous at the thought of meeting the beautiful lady that had waved at her so merrily the day before.

“Good morning, Joanna! It is a pleasure to meet you at last. Your father spent a long time talking to me about you last night.”

“He did?” Joanna asked uncertainly, looking up at her father for confirmation.

“He did,” the princess said firmly. “He said you were studying Africa at the moment with your governess. Hop on up here and tell me what you’ve learnt so far.”

Needing no further prompting, Joanna promptly launched herself into the empty seat next to the princess and began gabbling away about her geography lessons. Miss Rand approached unobtrusively and placed a bowl of Joanna’s favourite strawberries in front of her, and the girl began to eat them.

The door opened again and Lady Christine entered the room, bidding good morning to all. McCoy followed her around the sideboard as she helped herself to a plate of food, and they settled a little distance from the others at the table. Miss Rand was keeping a careful eye on Joanna, and Jim was keeping a less than subtle eye on Miss Rand.

“Will you be needed at the talks today, my lord?”

McCoy blinked and returned his eyes to Lady Christine.

She was eyeing him mischievously, looking absolutely charming in a chocolate brown dress edged with some kind of lace concoction that McCoy found his eye being drawn to. It hinted at the pale skin underneath, showing discreet glimpses of it while concealing her décolletage from public view.

God, he was completely lost if he was resorting to staring at lace.

“No,” he said eventually, remembering that he had been asked a question. “No, Lady Christine, I am not needed. Jim was the one who was invited by the Admiral. I was invited to keep him in line.”

“It’s just that I was thinking of taking a walk later, down towards the lake, and I was wondering if you would like to join me,” she hinted, raising her eyebrows slightly.

The lake would make a perfect place for their lesson; they would be in view of the house at all times, yet nobody would be close enough to hear their discussions.

“That sounds like a capital idea! I wager that Miss Rand has another nature walk planned for Joanna, right Miss Rand?”

Damn and blast it to hell. Trust Jim and his big mouth to spoil it.

“Won’t you be wanted in the conference room, Jim?” McCoy hinted heavily.

“Oh, not today,” Jim said breezily. “Today’s all about saying hello and exchanging gifts. I won’t be needed until we start to get down to the nitty-gritty of the discussions.”

“Indeed,” broke in Prince Spock. “Perhaps not even then.”

The look he gave Jim was incredibly polite, but even so, McCoy could detect an air of impatience in the man’s tone. Odd, for a representative of a race of people that prided themselves on emotional detachment so much.

“Come on, Spock,” Jim said affably, “you never know what I can bring to the table!”

McCoy recognised the challenge behind the friendly tone, and witnessed the slight tightening of the prince’s knuckles as he gripped his tea cup. Clearly, informality did not suit him, especially when it came from Jim.

He was about to wade into the diplomatic pissing match when he realised with a start that he didn’t have to. There was no reason to save Jim from his big mouth here; this was not the _Enterprise_ , and they were not at war. Jim was on his own, and good luck to him.

“Actually, I had thought of taking Lady Joanna out again later this morning,” Miss Rand said apologetically. “I believe there were ducks on the lake, and we were going to hunt for their nests.”

“Perfect!” Jim said happily. “We’ll all join you.”

“Perfect,” echoed McCoy, sounding less than thrilled.

“Perfect,” said Lady Christine, smiling at him from across the table, and suddenly, somehow it was just that.

“Don’t worry,” she told him quietly. “They’ll soon walk on ahead of us. We’ll have plenty of privacy.”

She was right; almost as soon as the party assembled on the path a few hours later, Joanna shot off towards the lake towing Miss Rand behind her. Jim followed them eagerly, for all the world like a giant golden retriever gambolling in the sunshine.

“Is it me, or is Jim getting more puppy-like every day?” enquired Lady Christine as they followed the path ahead of them, deliberately slowing their steps to allow the others to achieve a respectable distance from them.

“I worry about him,” McCoy admitted. “Miss Rand is a lovely young lady, and she is not encouraging him at all, but he will not take the hint.”

“It is a shame,” Lady Christine said wistfully. “I have not known her for very long, but Miss Rand seems a most intelligent and amiable young lady. She’s certainly an excellent governess. I think she would be a good match for him.”

“Do not tell the Dowager, but I am beginning to agree with you,” McCoy told her.

“Ah, the plan for an HRH,” Christine said. “All of London knows that she is holding out for one of Prinny’s cousins. I have wondered what Jim thought of the matter.”

“He seemed to look on the plan with amusement, until the last few months,” McCoy said, thinking about the matter properly for perhaps the first time. “Now it has been noticeable that he has been abandoning the outings and balls where one might meet a minor member of the royal family.”

“He’s attempting the ostrich approach,” Christine said decisively. “Sticking his head in the sand until the problem goes away. That’s never been his style before. He always took his thrashings if he knew he had deserved them.”

“Maybe he didn’t realise what marriage truly means,” McCoy mused. “So many people in the _ton_ see it as an alliance of fortunes rather than of lives and loves.”

Lady Christine cleared her throat delicately.

“Is that how you see the matter, Lord Arundel? That marriage is for love?”

“Oh yes,” he said immediately. “I could not conceive of marrying a woman unless there was true feeling between us. But then, I know from personal experience the folly of marrying based purely on that first rush of emotion. There must be more connecting a couple than love.”

“Such as similar interests?” asked Lady Christine, obviously mulling the issue over in her head.

“Well, yes,” McCoy allowed, “although I do not know many men who care for shopping for hats, or women who find pleasure in wagering on horse races.”

“You’d be surprised,” Lady Christine said mischievously. “I won a tidy sum on _Kobayashi Maru_ at the last Derby.”

“That’s one of Jim’s horses,” McCoy said in recognition. “The bookmakers had him down at twenty to one. Nobody thought he could do it.”

“Jim doesn’t lose, Lord Arundel,” Lady Christine replied, looking ahead to where Jim had offered a hand to Miss Rand to escort her over some uneven ground, then tucked it under his arm, keeping her walking by his side. The look of misgiving on Miss Rand’s face dropped, hesitantly, to reveal a timid but beautiful smile.

“You’d be a fool to bet against him,” she continued. “And I’m no fool.”  
Lady Christine shot him a dizzying smile that seemed to make the day brighter.

“It is my belief that you are currently employing the future Duchess of Albany,” she told him. “All that remains to be settled is how she assumes her title. I do not believe that Jim would stoop to dishonouring her, although he would if that were the only course available to him.”

McCoy nodded, seeing the sense in her words.

“I trust that you will not repeat these words, Lady Christine, as I am breaking a confidence by sharing them with you,” he warned.

Lady Christine nodded gravely.

“Jim feels that it is the title of duchess that is putting Miss Rand off from accepting him as a potential suitor. If he were of lesser rank and fortune, he believes she would have no trouble giving him her hand.”

“I can see why he believes that,” Lady Christine said eventually. “But he has to know that it’s all so much hogswash, doesn’t he?”

“Hogswash?” repeated McCoy, lips turning upward unwillingly at her choice of vocabulary.

“I have it on very good authority that when you love someone you are willing to do anything to secure their health and happiness. Isn’t that true, my lord?”

“Yes,” McCoy allowed. “Yes, my lady, that is indeed the truth.”

He remembered riding the best part of a day to secure a particular shade of ribbon that made Jocelyn’s green eyes shine like emeralds, just to see her smile. For Joanna’s health and safety there was nothing he would not do, and damn the consequences.

“So why does he think that she would not take on the challenges that being his wife would bring, is she loved him? He must have a poor idea of the strength of women, to believe Miss Rand incapable of the burden. If I loved a man I would do everything in my power to keep him happy and safe.”

“I do not believe that any man who had the privilege of knowing you would consider womankind to be weak, my lady,” McCoy said quietly and truthfully.

Lady Christine blushed a most becoming shade of pink, and McCoy couldn’t help but wonder how that blush would look if it were spread all over her body, and if that body were spread all over his sheets.

“I believe that we came here to discuss an altogether different matter,” he said eventually, once the stain had faded from her complexion.

“We did,” she replied, her voice even and clear.

“Tell me what you know already,” McCoy said, his voice a little more gruff than he would like. “That way I will not waste your time repeating knowledge you already have.”

 

 

Christine took a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts logically. For the first time she had a man of science willing to talk rationally to her and she was not about to spoil that by becoming miss-ish.

Did he have to be _quite_ so handsome, though?

“I know that a child is conceived when a man, ah, plants his seed inside a woman,” Christine forced herself to say. “But that only occurs when a woman is fertile, which is once a month, or thereabouts. That time is a sennight before her bleeding time.”

“That is essentially correct,” McCoy said gravely. “You are aware of, ah, the method of delivery?”

Christine raised an eyebrow. “Thanks to a childhood among livestock and an incredibly informative lady’s maid, yes. Although I would prefer if my mother had no idea about the extent of my knowledge.”

McCoy turned his head away slightly. Christine narrowed her eyes, just knowing that he was trying not to smile at her.

“Some recent scientific research has taken place on animals, and conclusions have been generated that we think apply to humans,” McCoy told her. “Although, you must understand, that further study may well disprove these conclusions and alter our perception of the process.”

“That is the paradox of the scientist, is it not?” Christine mused. “To spend such a large amount of time in the quest for knowledge, only to have that knowledge superseded at a later date. And be happy about it!”  
“In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last,” Lord Arundel told her.

“You are very wise, my lord,” Christine said, a small smile escaping her. Lord Arundel shook his head.

“I cannot take credit for that thought; it was a saying of one of my tutors, but one that has stuck with me. So, according to dissections I have witnessed of many animals, females of the species all have similar internal anatomy that is linked to the bearing of young. Indeed, in the female cadavers I have seen dissected, there have been similar organs. It is the current thought that women releases...let us call it an egg, although I should say that it bears no resemblance to a bird’s egg at all. A woman releases an egg every month, during her fertile time. If that egg is met with the seed of a man, the egg becomes fertilised, and stays in the womb of the woman, where it begins to grow into a child.”

“How?” asked Christine, fascinated. “It must be incredibly small to start with.”

“I would wager that the fertilised egg is impossible to witness without the aid of a device far more powerful than Mr Hooke’s microscope,” Lord Arundel told her. “After all, it takes a full ten months to develop into an infant.”

“Nine months,” Christine corrected him.

“Forty weeks,” Lord Arundel said with an air of superiority that Christine found most displeasing. “The average human pregnancy lasts for forty weeks. Which, if you allow for four weeks in a month, is ten months.”

“So why do women consider is to be nine months?” Christine asked, puzzled. “And don’t say that we cannot count,” she added sharply.

“There is some confusion on the matter,” McCoy said meekly. “It is near impossible to tell when exactly the child was conceived, except that a woman’s monthly courses stop during her pregnancy. So most women count from the stoppage of the courses, making it nine months.”

“Now, that it something I did not know,” Christine said in wonder. “The bleeding stops during pregnancy?”

McCoy nodded. “Except in cases where there is something wrong with the pregnancy,” he warned. “Sometimes it is the body’s way of rejecting the developing child.”

“That is a good thing,” Christine said eventually.”You would not know, not suffering as we women do, but it is most inconvenient to be at the mercy of our biology every month. To be pregnant seems ordeal enough, but to continue monthly courses as well would be adding insult to injury. Go on, my lord. I am all ears.”

McCoy continued, outlining what he knew of the development of the child in the womb throughout the woman’s pregnancy. Christine learned that many women craved certain types of foods during their confinement, and it was McCoy’s belief that they should be indulged.

“It is the woman’s body that must bear the brunt of the pregnancy,” he had said, shrugging his shoulders. “It seems logical to me that if her body requires some kind of nutrient it would tell her.”

Christine discovered much during that walk; she learned about the umbilicus, and how a baby was fed during its time growing in the womb. The process of labour was laid clear for her, and the basics of how it developed. The thought of Una struggling for hours with such pain made Christine almost dizzy with fear, although she did her best to hide that fact from her companion for fear that he might not continue with their discussion. He spoke reassuringly of the competence of midwives, a fact that surprised her. When she asked him about it, he had shrugged.

“A doctor may treat many different kinds of ailments, but a midwife specialises in one duty. It makes sense to me that she would know more about the process. I have not always believed so; I am afraid that with a surgeon’s license comes a more than healthy amount of ego. But my wife demanded that the midwife that brought her into the world would be the person that delivered her child, and I allowed it to be so.”

Christine knew that she was treading on thin ice, but she couldn’t help herself.

“I wonder at you allowing anything at all, my lord; I get the feeling that your wife must have been a woman of strong character.”

He had actually laughed at that, a sound that had made both Jim and Joanna turn around and stare at them, then wave. Lord Arundel had waved back, and the hunt for duck nests continued uninterrupted.

“My wife had the very strongest of characters, one of the few ways in which we were well matched,” he said honestly. “Neither of us would have suited with a partner of few ideas or insipid opinions. Sadly, though, apart for our love for our child, our similarities began and ended there. Once the first flush of love had passed, we found ourselves married to a person that was very different than expected. Ours was not a happy marriage.”

“Except for Joanna,” ventured Christine, looking at the happy child laughing with her governess.

“Except for her,” Lord Arundel said, brightening visibly. “She was the one thing that Jocelyn and I did right.”

On cue, the child came running over to tell her father of the important discoveries she had made by the edge of the water. Christine made sure that she busied herself with conversing with the child also; from the corner of her eye she could see Jim talking quietly to Miss Rand with a very earnest look upon his face, and if she was not mistaken the answering look on the governess’ was that of wobbling resolve.

Idly, Christine wondered what she could do to tip it over into acceptance.

 

Over the next week or so McCoy found himself slipping into an agreeable pattern. He breakfasted with his daughter, Lady Christine and any other of the company that manage to find their way to the morning room in time for the meal. He then repaired to the library for an hour or so, investigating the scientific books there, before joining Joanna and Miss Rand for their walk, which, weather allowing, had become a daily feature. Jim accompanied them whenever his presence was not needed at the debate table, and Lady Christine joined the party when her duties as hostess do not require her attention elsewhere.

He spent his afternoons going through the account books and plans that his agents in London, Sussex and Northumberland sent down to him, trying to work out how best to spend his money to improve his fields, his herds and the lives of his tenants. Seeing the estate here at Berkely, with its snug, well-thatched cottages, sensible sanitation systems and happy tenants made him concerned for his holdings, especially those in Northumberland. He needed to visit them incredibly soon, he realised, to take in the condition for himself, and to oversee the construction of new homes.

The Duchess was often seen visiting the tenants of the estate, basket of estate goods in hand, cheerfully talking to the women and children who were home when she called. McCoy had accompanied her on several of her visits to an injured worker, who had refused to call out the local doctor to see to his wounds. The man’s wife was beside herself with worry that her husband may lose his leg and therefore their income, and had confided in the duchess during one of her visits. The duchess had calmly and politely rode roughshod over the injured man’s objections, and enlisted McCoy to tend the worker. He had been too cowed to refuse the services of the Earl of Arundel, and had submitted meekly to the regimen of care McCoy prescribed.

Watching the duchess chat to washerwomen, blacksmiths and farm workers, and watching them open up to her in return, made McCoy realise the importance of a female touch to the running of his estates. Even though the difference in their stations was immense, there was a bond, one wife to another, which had meant that the injured man’s wife felt she could approach the duchess for help. Only a woman would have been able to help in that situation, and it would be a very long time before Joanna was ready to take over that role.

Finding a wife began to become more of a priority; the tenants of his estate deserved the same attention that the Duchess of Riverside showed hers. She often brought Lady Christine along with her, and McCoy was pleased to note that she did not turn her nose up at taking tea with the wife and family of farm labourers. She was as pleasant to that company as she was to the royalty at the big house.

She would do well in her sister’s role, McCoy realised, and filed that information away to be thought about more closely at a later date.

Late in the afternoon he would go and rescue Joanna from her lessons, giving Miss Rand some much deserved free time. The next hour or two were devoted to Joanna’s amusement, and, with the guidance of the admiral’s chief groom, McCoy was starting to teach Joanna how to ride. Her shyness with adults did not extend to horses; his little Amazon seemed born to ride, and chafed at the restriction of the small, placid pony and the leading rein.

He sat with Joanna while she ate her evening meal in the makeshift nursery, then waited while one of the friendly maids bathed her and dressed her for bed. He read to her from one of her favourite books then left her to the watchful eye of the maid while he dressed for dinner and made small talk with the other guests.

He only had a very vague idea about what was being discussed in the privacy of the admiral’s private office. Everyone was remaining close lipped, but he had discerned that it had something to do with both trade and military matters. The rise to power of the French in last decades, and the threat that held for shipping in international waters, was a serious concern to countries other than England.

It was clear that the talks were not going particularly well; evening meals were often fraught with silences and heated glares. The duchess and Lady Christine worked overtime to create an air of good humour, and McCoy now understood why Jim had been invited to the party. He was gregarious and charming, and only the Vulcanian prince could withstand his assault on their bad mood.

On particularly bad days, the admiral invited Joanna to eat with them, which was a masterly move. The appearance of the child at the table always softened the princess’ mood, and prompted the often silent Japanese prince to demonstrate his amazing skill at something he called _origami_ to produce perfect paper flowers. Prince Pavel would pretend not to know the English words for things, and had Joanna giggling as she tried her best to teach him.

Joanna was beginning to lose her shyness with new people; exposure to the indulgent adults at the party made her more confident, and her smiles were now regular occurrences. Lady Christine was becoming a particular favourite of his daughter, and McCoy wasn’t ashamed to admit to himself that he encouraged Joanna to think positively of the beautiful blonde. It was Lady Christine who had reminded the admiral that he had promised Joanna that she could have one of his puppies, and not long afterwards most of the guests had traipsed out to the stable block where the mother was kept with her pups.

“They’re mongrels,” admitted the admiral quietly to McCoy, as an enchanted Joanna was introduced to first the mother, then the puppies under the careful guidance of Jim. “The mother’s a working dog, a retriever, but the gamekeeper has no idea what dog got at her.”

McCoy looked critically at the puppies. They seemed lively enough, but they certainly weren’t going to win any prizes for their beauty. Joanna, however, was practically vibrating with excitement at finding Buttons. One puppy in particular seemed to be as enamoured with her as she was with him, and was yanking determinedly at the trailing ribbon of her sash.

“This is Buttons, Papa,” Joanna said proudly, lifting the wriggling mass into her lap.

“Are you sure, Joanna?” McCoy asked carefully. “Because if you’d like, we could wait until we’re back in London and get you a sweet little spaniel.”

Joanna’s eyes narrowed, and her lips set into a firm line.

“I am positive, Papa,” she said firmly. “I don’t want a spaniel. _This_ is Buttons.”

Buttons yapped agreeably and licked Joanna’s face in agreement.

“Very well,” McCoy said, knowing a lost cause when it was staring him in the face. “But I think that Buttons needs to remain with his mother a little longer.”

“You can visit him every day,” the admiral said quickly, cutting off a potential loss of temper before it started. “And Brooks, the gamekeeper, will teach you how to train Buttons so that he comes at your call."

Placated with this, Joanna agreed to leave Buttons with his yapping brothers and sisters, but she talked of nothing else to anybody else for the rest of the week. Every day, after her breakfast, Miss Rand would accompany Joanna out to the stables where the weather-beaten gamekeeper would be waiting to show Joanna how to train Buttons to come to heel, sit and stay.

Both mistress and pet were excitable and rambunctious, so most of the training was actually done by Brooks himself, but as the weeks progressed, Joanna began to exert her authority over the dog that adored her.

In fact, such was the improvement in Buttons’ behaviour that McCoy allowed Joanna to bring him with them when the long-planned trip to see Dr Jenner finally came about. The entire party went out for the trip, although only a few were vaccinated by the great man, including Joanna. McCoy had ridden alone with Joanna in the carriage on their way to the small village where Dr Jenner loved, and had tried to explain what was going to happen.

“So, if you have the vaccination, you won’t die like Mama?” Joanna asked suspiciously, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar word.

“If I have the vaccination, I won’t get the illness Mama did,” McCoy hedged. He suspected that telling his daughter that he still could fall foul of a hundred other deadly afflictions would do no good to his daughter’s peace of mind.

Joanna remained silent for a long time, staring down at Buttons, who was sprawled over the floor of the carriage, fast asleep.

“Then I want to have it too,” she said eventually, sounding determined. “I can’t die, Papa. You would be all alone. Buttons is good company, but you would miss me.”

“I certainly would,” McCoy reassured her. He picked her up and pulled her into his lap and was rewarded with a big hug. “We will both have the vaccination,” he told her. “Then we’ll both be safe.”

Dr Jenner turned out to be a courteous man in his sixties, living in a fine manor house. He was delighted to be the subject of such interest to the collection of royalty and nobility that descended on his house, and proudly showed his laboratory to those of a scientific mind. His wife offered a tour of the gardens to those not being vaccinated, and the groups split. McCoy, Joanna, Lady Christine and Miss Rand remained behind, along with Prince Spock who pronounced himself “fascinated” with Jenner’s work, and Jim, who Joanna insisted be vaccinated as well. Jim looked a little green around the gills at the thought of the procedure, but when Miss Rand bravely presented her arms for treatment he had no other course but to follow suit.

Joanna was pronounced “very brave” by the great doctor as she stoically endured the process. Any tears that fell were silent ones, and she was disappointed when she was told that Buttons was ineligible for vaccination. However, Dr Jenner’s wife, a friendly soul who was coping well with the princes in her best parlour, arranged for a special treat for Joanna with the production of a freshly baked sponge cake, liberally slathered with strawberry jam.

It was a slightly stickier party that eventually left the home of the Jenners for a picnic spot a few miles away by the side of a pretty river. Servants had gone on ahead with tables, chairs, food and all the necessary crockery and cutlery, and by the time the party arrived everything had been set in place.

It was all a little too formal for Christine’s tastes; to her, a riverside picnic involved nothing more complicated than a basket of food, a blanket to sit on and a good book. Still, when one dined with princes, one did not sit on the floor. At least, not on Roddenberry’s watch.

She was handed into her seat by the Earl of Arundel, who had finally lost the frown he had been wearing all morning. Watching his daughter accept the vaccination so bravely had obviously affected him; she was safe now, Christine realised, safe from the disease that had robbed her mother from her.

Christine’s heart couldn’t help but break for the child; as annoying as her own mother was, Christine knew that she was loved most dearly. The thought of growing up without her mother’s love and affection was a thought too awful to contemplate, yet that was the reality of Joanna’s life. She was lucky to have a father that adored her so.

Christine watched as the earl helped Joanna to select food from the platters that footmen were gracefully offering up to the guests. She smiled as he said something that made the little girl laugh, and she pretended not to notice as he scolded the child for slipping Buttons scraps from her plate, but then slid the dog slices of cold chicken breast when he thought nobody was looking.

Una decreed that it was too fine a day to spend sitting in a carriage, so they decided to spend some time at the bank of the river. Una and the princess sat with Joanna, creating a daisy chain coronet for the child to wear. Joanna took great pleasure in showing the princess how this important skill was done, daisies not being native to her highness’ homeland. Buttons amused himself by stalking butterflies, chasing his tail and then collapsing, asleep, in the lap of his besotted owner.

The admiral and the Vulcanian prince sat off to one side, no doubt discussing something of great national importance. Christine could not imagine the prince or her brother in law being capable of the small talk that she was forced to engage in at her usual social functions.

Christine had noticed a growing friendship between the two younger princes. Prince Pavel hung on every word Prince Hikaru uttered as if it were gospel truth, and in return he was responsible for the latter’s growing conviviality. They spent a lot of time together outside of the negotiations; if you were seeking out one, you would invariably find the other also. After the picnic lunch they decided to go for a walk along the riverbank, and they set off together, followed at a discreet distance by members of their retinues. They claimed to be personal servants, but there was something about their uniformly muscular build and darting, suspicious eyes that made Christine suspect that they functioned more as bodyguards than valets.

Jim also pronounced himself ready for a walk, and after having ascertained that Joanna was safe and happy in the company of the two ladies, whisked Miss Rand off down the riverbank in the opposite direction to the two princes. Una gave a discreet cough and nudged Christine in the ribs pointedly, forcing her to rise and trail after the pair of them. She wasn’t surprised when the earl fell into step with her; either Una thought that there was no chance that anything improper would happen between them while they were away from the group, and so sent him to keep her company, or she _was_ hoping something improper would happen, and was therefore the worst chaperone in the history of the venerable institution. Either prospect was possible; her sister was becoming worryingly fixated on marrying Christine off and she was ruthless enough to use any tactic.

The path along the side of the river bank meandered between some pretty copses of trees, blocking the wanderers from being observed by their party. Christine found herself walking incredibly slowly, wishing to give Jim and Miss Rand some privacy. The earl must have been of the same mind, because he fell into step with her without commenting on their lack of pace.

When they had moved beyond the sight of the party on the riverbank, he took her hand in his just as he had done that night they had met in the library. He made no pretence of placing it correctly on his arm, but instead held it gently but firmly. Christine was the one who squeezed tightly, hoping that the press of her hand could convey the depth of emotion that he stirred in her. She had never met a man like him before; he took her desire to improve her mind seriously, and did not patronise her when she found a gap in her education. During their daily walks she had discovered just how patchy her learning was, and he had suggested several books that she might read once she was back in London that would help her plug the gaps. She had sighed artfully and told him how difficult it was for her to access booksellers that sold such texts, and he had promised faithfully that he would be responsible for delivering any book she might need to her.

Other suitors had brought her flowers and chocolates; it appeared that the key to her heart was the promise of a copy of Sommerring’s _De corporis humani fabrica_.

Of course, the fact that he was an incredibly handsome man was not lost on her. The moment she saw him she had taken a fancy to him, which was only strengthened by her regard for his good character. She wasn’t blind to his faults; Jim described him as grumpy, and she had seen him be exactly that on many an occasion. But his lack of humour never lasted long, and his features took on a most attractive cast when he scowled. And the Lord only knew, she wasn’t always the sunniest of people herself.

If she were a man, she would be able to declare her intentions and start acting like a suitor but she was a woman, and a woman could not do these things. Instead, she could press his hand tightly when it found hers, and hope he understood that it meant _I like you_ and _I want you_ and _any time you want to kiss me would be fine by me_.

She thought he wanted to kiss her; several times she had caught him staring at her lips as they conversed, and he got amusingly territorial when another of the unmarried men sat next to her or tried to engage her in conversation. She rather hoped he was feeling jealous; she felt the same whenever the princess monopolised his attention, talking about Joanna.

Christine got on well with the child, although she knew that finding a child amusing and becoming a parent were very different things. And if she was seriously considering the earl as a marriage prospect, then Joanna would have to be considered as well. Although he had said nothing on the subject, Christine knew that to love one was to love both; they came as a package. She didn’t want to do anything as crass as befriend the child solely as a means of engaging the interest of the father as she had a suspicion that Joanna would see through that ploy even if her father did not. Instead, she tried to be open and friendly to the child and hoped that, if events progressed with her father, they would have a good foundation for a future relationship.

Prompting the admiral to give her a puppy had been an _excellent_ move in that direction.

They walked slowly along the path until the sound of voices from ahead cut into their pleasing silence. Christine stopped abruptly.

“I do not wish to disturb them,” she said quietly. “This is the only time they have had to speak privately.”

McCoy nodded his head in agreement.

“I know that I shouldn’t be encouraging them,” he admitted. “But the more time I spend with Miss Rand, the more I am convinced that she is a good match for Jim.”

The voices got louder, the words carrying clearly back to Christine and the earl.

“I don’t understand!” That was Jim, frustrated and not above showing it. “You know that I love you completely and utterly. I have said so on every occasion I could find in our time here, and I know that you are not indifferent to me. So why do you not accept me?”

Miss Rand’s voice was quieter, but no less impassioned.

“I am not indifferent at all, my lord. In fact, I would argue that my love for you matches yours in every aspect of intensity and desire. But although you may find it easy to ignore the dictates of society, I cannot. A duke cannot marry the impoverished daughter of a country squire, especially if she is a servant in his home!”

“You’re not my servant,” Jim replied stubbornly. Christine could picture his pout perfectly. “And there is no law that says that we cannot be married.”

“There is your lady mother,” Miss Rand sighed. “Whom I believe is a law unto herself. Everybody knows of her plans for your marriage. She would not be pleased if you presented her to me as her daughter-in-law.”

“You honestly believe that I would be dictated to by _her_?” Jim spat out in disbelief. “Do you forget, madam, that I fought against the French? That I was the captain of the flagship of the fleet? Do you think that I am cowed by the wishes of my own mother?”

“No,” Miss Rand said with infinitely more patience than Christine would have had at this point. “Of course I do not. But I would not be the reason that you and she fell out! She is the only parent that you have ever known; you cannot take the chance of losing her. I no longer have my parents and I feel their loss keenly every day. I would not wish the same fate on you, and I will not be the cause of it. As much as I may wish to, I cannot marry you. Please, stop asking me.”

“I will not,” Jim vowed.

“We cannot win,” Miss Rand said bitterly, her tears evident in the sobs that now escaped her. “Even if by some miracle your mother approved the match, I would be given the cut direct by society ladies. They would not welcome me into their ranks, coronet or no coronet.”

“You would be the Duchess of Albany,” Jim ground out. “ _You_ would cut _them_.”

“We cannot win,” Miss Rand repeated. “Please, if you love me as much as you say you do, you will not ask me again.”

There was silence, then Christine heard a sharp intake of breath and the unmistakeable sound of passionate kissing. Having parents that still loved and desired each other after thirty years of marriage was both a blessing and a curse, at times.

“I do not believe in no-win scenarios,” Jim said firmly, then his heavy footsteps were heard on the path coming back towards them. Christine looked at the earl in panic and then darted for a nearby stand of trees, dragging him behind her. They stayed pressed against the broad tree trunks as Jim, looking furious, came marching back along the path at speed.

“You had better go and counsel him;” Christine told the earl. “I will see to Miss Rand.”

He nodded, lifted her hand to his lips to press a courtly kiss to it and disappeared in the direction of his friend. Christine took a deep breath and headed further along the path to find Miss Rand.

She half-expected the woman to be a crumpled mess, sitting on the ground and wailing. She wouldn’t have blamed her in the slightest. However, to her great surprise, Christine found Miss Rand kicking a small bush viciously.

“I think you killed it,” Christine said in greeting.

Miss Rand whipped around, her eyes aflame and colour high in her cheeks. It was clear that she had been crying, but instead of getting the puffy eyes and snotty nose that Christine always suffered from, Miss Rand looked...cleansed, somehow. Purified, even. Life was really not at all fair.

“Lady Christine,” Miss Rand said, dabbing at her eyes with the back of her glove. “I did not see you there.”

“I have only just arrived,” Christine lied. “Are you well?”

She pulled a handkerchief from her reticule, and handed it to the governess.

“I suspect you know the cause of my discomfort, Lady Christine,” Miss Rand said wryly.

“He was rather difficult to miss, wasn’t he? All that pouting and stamping of the feet. He was the same as a child, you know, when he couldn’t have what he wanted.”

“He is not the only one guilty of stamping their feet,” said Miss Rand, looking at the remains of the bush that had taken the brunt of her anger.

“Do you mind if I say something?” Christine asked.

Miss Rand shrugged her shoulders.

“Everything you said to him made sense, you know. You were right in that the Dowager would not consider you to be the right match for Jim.”

“Thank you for your honesty, your ladyship,” Miss Rand ground out.

“Oh be quiet, I haven’t finished,” scolded Christine. Miss Rand obediently closed her mouth and waited for Christine to speak again.

“However, I think that you are underestimating the love that the Dowager has for Jim. He’s her only son. If he told her that you were his only choice of wife, then she would accept you. Er, sooner or later, that is . And you needn’t worry about society ladies. I would support you, and I know that Una would too. She is very popular in London at the moment, and you know how scary she can be. One of my mother’s dearest friends is Lady Castlereagh, a patroness of Almack’s and a complete snob. If she were to be the one that launched the new Duchess of Albany into society, you’d have a friend for life.”

“You are very kind,” Miss Rand told her. “But the difference in station between the duke and myself is just too large.”

“Would you have him give up his title for you?” Christine demanded. “Because I can guarantee you that the idiot is probably considering that right now.”

“I would countenance no such thing!” Miss Rand snapped. “The very last thing I wish to do is cause him any harm.”

“Your refusal to love him is harming him,” Christine said bluntly. “If you insist on turning him down, then he will marry whatever woman his mother finds for him and live a sad and lonely life.”

“He would find happiness,” Miss Rand said quietly. “Eventually.”

Christine shook her head.

“You must forgive me, Miss Rand, but you are mistaken. I have known Jim longer, and I am telling you plainly that when he gives his heart, he gives it wholly and permanently. He has chosen you, and if he cannot have you then part of him will wither and die. He will not be the man that you love any longer, and I think we will all suffer from it.”

Both women were silent for a few minutes. They watched a family of swans, complete with seven squawking cygnets swim gracefully downriver. Miss Rand was lost in thought, twisting Christine’s handkerchief anxiously between her fingers. Christine hoped she hadn’t laid it on too thickly with the other woman, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

“We should be getting back,” she said aloud. “They will be wondering what happened to us.”

Miss Rand nodded, and together they walked back to the main party in silence.

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	10. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 4964/62857  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Where Lord Arundel gets his hands on Lady Christine's stockings, but not in the way he would like, and where Lady Christine gets wet on his behalf, but not in the way she would like._

They returned to the house in time to dress for the evening meal, but the argument between Jim and Miss Rand seemed to cast a pall over the whole evening. Excuses were made not to linger over dinner, and people disappeared from the drawing room early. The trip had made Una exhausted, and the admiral broke with all protocol and accompanied his wife to bed, leaving his guests to fend for themselves.

Christine decided to head for the library, where she hoped to find Lord Arundel. Their walk earlier that day had been quite spoiled and she had wanted to spend more time with him. But he was probably with Jim, drinking the admiral’s whisky and bemoaning the existence of womankind. That was what her brother Andrew did when he was spurned by a young lady, and Christine assumed that it was the practice of all men.

Still, she could never be bored in a library, and she soon fell under its spell. There was a roaring fire in the grate, the lamps were still lit and leather-bound volumes called to her from high shelves. There was a step-ladder folded neatly against the wall, and it didn’t take her long to move it and set it up against the shelf she desired. She hitched up her skirts and scaled it neatly, perching on a rung as she perused different volumes. She was so lost in the books that she didn’t notice the door to the library opening, or the entrance of the earl until he was directly underneath the ladder.

“Lady Christine,” he began, but that was all he was able to say as she let out a yell, dropped the book she was reading and slipped off the ladder. He darted around to stop her hitting the floor, but she got her ankle caught in the ladder and brought it down as well.  
He caught her before she hit the floor, pulling her away from the ladder as it crashed downwards.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded.

“My ankle,” she replied with gritted teeth.

He cast about the room for somewhere to put her, and his gaze fell on an armchair. He deposited her there as gently as he could, and knelt at her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have startled you.”

“Don’t be silly,” she managed. “I shouldn’t have been reading eight feet in the air. It was an accident.”

“I’d like to examine your ankle, to see how badly it’s hurt,” he told her. “I can ring for your maid.”

She waved his courtesy and concern for her reputation away.

“Just get on with it,” she told him.

Gently, he lifted her foot up and placed it on his thigh. He pulled her delicate slipper off carefully, and let the tips of his fingers trace over her stockinged foot. He then slid his fingers up over her ankle, pressing gently here and there, and then moved his hands up to her calf and did the same thing.

“It hurts a little,” she told him. “But not a very great deal.”

He looked at her gravely. “One way to determine the extent of the injury is to examine the skin,” he told her. “I need permission to remove your stocking.”

“You have it,” she assured him, trying desperately to keep a waver out of her voice. The last thing she wanted was for him to call in a witness to the examination. The pain in her ankle seemed to die away at the thought of his hands touching her bare skin.

Nodding, he took the hem of her skirt and chemise and lifted it, pushing it up the long length of her leg until he could see the garter that held up her stocking. Christine supposed she should be the one that untied it, but before she could move his deft fingers had unlaced the knot. She sucked in a breath as he slipped his fingers into the silk stocking and began to roll it down her leg.

She winced a little as he reached her ankle, but he was as gentle as he could be, and barely jostled it. Once he had peeled the fine silk stocking away, he began to touch her ankle carefully.

“It feels warm, but not too hot,” he said appraisingly. “It’s starting to swell and bruise, but you have a good range of movement in the joint. I think that it’s only a sprain. If you leave a cold compress on it and keep it elevated for a while, it should be fine.”

“Thank you,” Christine said automatically, her gaze locked onto the way that his deft fingers were now stroking the skin of her foot.

“I’ll call for your maid to prepare the compress,” he told her, and pulled over a footstool so he could rise and ring the bell for a servant.

Christine pressed her fingers to her cheeks in an attempt to cool them. The act of attending to her ankle had been far more than a medical check. Each touch of his fingers felt like a caress, sending sparks up her spine. And he had only been touching her _leg_. She couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like if his touch had dared to go further, above the barrier of her garter and under her chemise. She shivered slightly at the thought of it. When she had demanded that Gaila tell her all about the private intimacies of a man and his wife (or lady of Gaila’s previous profession), the maid had told her of the pleasure than a man’s touch could bring. But Christine had only ever experienced the sweaty hands and groping fingers of the men that pushed her around the dance floor, and had not quite believed that a man touching her could ever be considered pleasurable.

Clearly, she and Gaila were going to have to have another talk as soon as possible.

Voices at the door informed her that a maid had arrived to answer the summons, and then Lord Arundel appeared again.

“Your maid will be ready in your room with cold compresses,” he informed her. “You won’t be able to walk upstairs, though. Do you want me to fetch a footman, or would you allow me to carry you?”

“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble,” Christine demurred, but the earl shook his head.  
“It’s no trouble at all,” he assured her. “And I was the reason that you fell.”

At his prompting she put her arms around his neck and he lifted her from the chair, walking carefully as not to bump her leg against any of the furniture or doors. Thankfully there were no servants around to witness her being carried like one of the Sabine women. He took her directly to the corridor that her room was on, and she directed him to the right door. Inside her room Gaila was already soaking lengths of cloth in cold water.

The earl put her down in an easy chair and brought a footstool to support her ankle, and apologised again as Gaila began layering the cold cloths on her ankle.

“If you have any need at all, you must send for me at once,” he stressed.

“I am sure that I will be fine,” Christine told him. “As you said, it is only a sprain. With rest, it should be as good as new in no time.”

“Good night, then,” he said, pausing as he looked at Gaila, who was bent industriously over Christine’s ankle. He looked as if he wished to say something more, but he just nodded to her and left the room.

“There are easier ways to get a man to put his arms around you, you know,” Gaila said absently as she wrapped another layer of cool cloth around Christine’s ankle.

“Oh hush,” Christine scolded her.”The earl was just being a gentleman.”

“That’s a shame,” commiserated Gaila, and Christine tugged at one of her ringlets.

“I’m not supposed to know what you’re talking about, O’Ryan,” Christine said severely. Gaila grinned at her and wrung out another bandage.

“Although,” Christine began slowly, “there were one or two things that I wanted to talk to you about.”

“If your mother finds out, I’ll be sacked,” Gaila warned.

“If my mother finds out, I’ll be dead,” Christine told her. “Don’t worry, I have no intention of her finding out.”

“Go on then, fire away,” Gaila sighed.

Christine smiled, and started her interrogation.

 

Lady Christine’s ankle kept her off her feet for the next few days, much to her annoyance. She spent the first day in bed with her ankle elevated, and the lack of anything at all productive to do nearly drove her insane. An old invalid’s chair was unearthed from the attics, and she bore the indignity of being pushed from room to room because it allowed her to talk to people and take part in activities. It also meant that she had to be carried up and down stairs and, since Lord Arundel, still blaming himself for her accident, refused to allow anybody else the duty, she found that she really didn’t mind very much at all.

By the third day she was beginning to tire of the interior of the house, and her temper was becoming decidedly snappish. Una, for the sake of diplomacy, decided to hold an outdoor luncheon. The admiral reported that the talks were finally becoming productive, and he was keen to foster good relations between the representatives. They all seemed to like the idea of time away from the table, and the day itself was warm and clear. By this point Christine was able to walk slowly but not for long distances, so she, Una and the princess stayed sitting in the small marquee after lunch.

Things were still tense between Jim and Miss Rand, so she begged off the afternoon’s activities, claiming a pressing need to prepare lessons for Joanna. Jim and Lord Arundel headed off for a walk along the circumference of the lake, while Prince Pavel and Prince Hikaru, now completely inseparable, walked in the opposite direction. The admiral was making the most of the opportunity to spend time with his wife; they were still newlyweds, but the hosting the talks took much of their respective days. Una had confided to Christine that she missed him, despite living in the same house as him. Prince Spock had settled next to Princess Nyota, and they were conversing in a language that was completely unfamiliar to Christine. She assumed that it was the prince’s native tongue as speaking it made him look positively relaxed. He was usually so careful and precise with every word and gesture it was a surprise to see him look so animated.

Joanna had stayed behind with the women; she had wanted to go with her father, but he had asked her stay behind as he needed to talk to Uncle Jim alone. She had pouted but reluctantly agreed, and spent her time throwing a ball for Buttons to retrieve and bring back to her. The dog may have been descended from retrievers, but it was clear that it had not yet mastered the art of bringing back its ball. On one throw, Buttons snatched up the ball and took off towards the lake, running straight onto the wooden bridge.

Joanna called to him but he didn’t listen to his young mistress. Annoyed, she ran after him, calling his name again and again.

Christine looked up from the book she was reading just as Joanna started to cross the rickety wooden bridge spanning the fast-moving river. She threw aside her book sharply and called to the child.

“Joanna! Get off the bridge!”

The child obviously didn’t hear her, or didn’t _want_ to hear her, because she clambered on determinedly. By now Buttons had cleared the bridge and was a small dot on the other side of the river.

Christine hopped up and Una heaved herself up also, looking on in fear.

“Christopher, you gave orders that the bridge is to be pulled down,” she said, alarmed. “It’s unsafe!”

“We must retrieve the child,” Princess Nyota said firmly, and started moving towards the lake, Christine hot on her heels. She heard the admiral curse the fact that his leg wound made him move so slowly. In the distance she could see Miss Rand running down the path from the house. Jim and the earl were running back towards them and shouting at Joanna also. Joanna moved forward on the bridge, towards her father’s side of the lake, but there was a sickening crack as the rotten wood gave way and Joanna plummeted, screaming, down into the cold, dark water.

Jim and the earl redoubled their efforts, but Christine could tell that they were just too far away from the lake to be of any use. There were some gardeners also running towards the lake, but they too were a distance away. Princess Nyota skidded to a halt, clutching at Christine’s arm.

“I cannot swim,” she said in despair.

“I can,” Christine said grimly, and plunged into the icy water.

The shock of being immersed in the cold water made her gasp for breath, but she ploughed onwards, her attention firmly on the child. Joanna was floundering in the water, clearly trying to swim, but not succeeding. Christine swam faster than she ever had in her life, desperate to reach the child before she ran out of energy and drowned.

She caught hold of Joanna’s arm just as the child began to sink down towards the bottom of the river bed. She yanked her up above the water and started dragging her back towards the shore. It was hard going, and several times the flailing child struggled in panic, making it even more difficult for Christine to keep them both afloat. She wished she was able to calm Joanna down, but she barely had enough breath as it was. Her dress and chemise were waterlogged and tangled around her legs, stopping her from kicking fully. The water was icy cold, and the shock of her immersion was beginning to catch up with her. Despite this, Christine knew that she had to keep moving; if she did not, they would both drown.

She had towed Joanna nearly all the way back across the lake before there were other splashes in the water, and strong hands detached Joanna from her frozen fingers. Other hands flipped her onto her back, and an arm like a steel band fell across her chest. Christine submitted to being pulled through the water, grateful that she could abdicate responsibility for the rescue to another.

Christine’s rescuer reached the shore at the same time as Lord Arundel and Jim arrived, red faced with exertion after running the track around the side of the lake. Miss Rand was close on their heels. Jim plunged into the cold water, boots be damned, to take her from the arms of the man who had assisted her.

“Thank you,” she managed to gasp to a thoroughly sodden Prince Hikaru, who bowed and said nothing. One of his retinue, who had arrived with a hastily-summoned recue party, immediately smothered him with a blanket, negating any further communication.

Jim grabbed one of the blankets and immediately wrapped her up in it so tightly that she felt like a sausage roll, and tried to say so. She saw Lord Arundel taking a crying Joanna from a dripping-wet Archduke Pavel, before some of his Russian bodyguards tackled him to the ground and smothered him in yet another blanket. Princess Nyota brought blankets for Joanna.  
Within minutes of being pulled from the lake, Roddenberry had managed to provide hot chocolate and coffee from the kitchens. Jim watched her carefully as she sipped at the cup he put in her hands.

“Chrissy?” Jim said anxiously. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, shivering. “How is Joanna?”

They looked over at Lord Arundel, who was holding a sobbing bundle of cloth. His lips were moving in a silent prayer, and he looked both relieved and devastated simultaneously.

“We should return inside immediately,” Princess Nyota said firmly. “We must get these people into hot baths and warm clothes.”

“Roddenberry, get the maids to prepare hot baths for everybody, immediately,” Una told him. “Hot soup, too.”

Footmen dashed off to the kitchens to relay the message, and the party, now slightly bedraggled, made its way back to the house. Despite protesting that she could walk unassisted, Jim swung Christine up into his arms and insisted on carrying her.

“I’m not made of glass,” she complained. “I can walk.”

“Your dress is transparent,” Jim said through gritted teeth. “If you walked, you’d be showing every gardener and footman your considerable charms.”

“Oh,” said Christine, embarrassed. She tugged the blanket more firmly around her.

“Good thing I’m immune to them,” Jim said immediately, making the embarrassment disappear, only to be replaced by annoyance, a familiar, comfortable emotion where Jim was concerned.

Christine looked around from the security of Jim’s shoulder. Prince Hikaru was walking alongside Prince Pavel, and was urging another blanket on the slender youth. Nyota was speaking quietly to Una, who was beginning to look slightly calmer. Lord Arundel was striding ahead, and his stern voice could be heard scolding Joanna roundly for endangering not only her life, but those of her rescuers as well. Miss Rand followed just behind him, hovering anxiously at his heels.

Jim was determined to do his chivalrous duty right to the end; he carried her directly into her bedchamber and would have lingered if an enraged Gaila hadn’t sent him back out into the corridor. Christine’s fingers were numb with cold, so she could only sit slumped in a chair as Gaila and a housemaid stripped her efficiently of her boots, dress, chemise and bodice. By this point more housemaids had appeared with hot water in great steaming urns, and a bath was prepared for her.

Christine almost cried at the sensation of heat returning to her body; it was painful at first, then her body went gloriously numb. Gaila fussed about the room, ordering the housemaid to build up the fire in the grate until it was burning fiercely. The maids kept the hot water topped up while Gaila fed her spoonfuls of hot soup.

Eventually Gaila pronounced her colour returned and her body restored to warmth, and Christine was bundled into her night clothes and tucked into bed.

“It is only three o’clock,” protested Christine, but Gaila was having none of it.

“Her Graces’s orders,” Gaila replied firmly, and that was the end of the matter.  
Una came in soon afterwards, and settled companionably at the side of Christine’s bed.

“How are you?” she asked anxiously.

“I’m fine,” said Christine firmly. “I’m warm and toasty, and not at all hurt.”

“That’s good,” Una said, relief evident in every line of her face. “I was dreading having to tell Mama that I’d let you get injured here.”

“How is Joanna?” Christine asked.

“Sound enough to be shouted at,” Una replied wryly. “Lord Arundel is still in her room with her, along with Miss Rand and Jim. She’s had a very big shock, but you recued her before anything dreadful happened.”

“Thank goodness Papa insisted on those swimming lessons,” Christine said, yawning and stretching. “It was worth the terrible rows he and Mama had on the subject.”

“Joanna would have drowned without them,” Una agreed. “And I don’t know what would have happened to Lord Arundel if she had died. He bathed and dried her himself, you know. He quite refused to let anybody help. The last I saw of him, he was lying next to her in bed telling her how angry he was with one breath and how much he loved her in another.”

“He is a very good father,” Christine told her sister. “Just like Papa is, and Christopher will be.”

Una’s hands drifted to her abdomen.

“You really think so?” she asked nervously. “We had never talked of children; we waited so long to be married, and he is older, and I am not in my first flush of youth any more…”  
Christine snorted inelegantly.

“You’re not exactly sprouting grey hairs, so I wouldn’t worry. And you’ll be tremendous parents, both of you. A chid could not ask for better.”

Una, not much given to tears, dabbed at her eyes with her hand.

“I swear this baby is turning me into a waterspout,” she muttered.

“How are their imperial highnesses?” asked Christine, to change the subject and distract her embarrassed sister. “I must thank them for their help.”

“Roddenberry had them whisked off to the gentleman’s wing,” Una said. “Christopher is with them. They seemed in good spirits, and are probably still soaking in hot baths at the moment.”

“I will thank them at dinner,” Christine said again, a yawn breaking into her last few words.

“Rest now,” ordered her sister kindly. “Go to sleep, Christine.”

“I’m not tired,” protested Christine, and was asleep before the door had shut softly behind Una.

 

It was only when Joanna’s breathing had evened out, her chest rising and falling in an unhurried manner, that McCoy let himself breathe normally again. He cradled his sleeping daughter tightly in his arms and stared at her, not quite willing to believe that she was actually there. Buttons, retrieved by one of the gardeners, was also asleep at the foot of the bed. Joanna had refused to settle until he was allowed into her room. If McCoy had been given his head, he would have strangled the puppy with his bare hands.

The moment he had watched the rickety old bridge give way and Joanna plunge down into the freezing water of the lake, he had been sure that she was dead. He was so far away from her, and all he could do was watch as his daughter fell like a discarded doll and disappear. In his haste to cover the ground between himself and the lake he had not seen a determined steak of pale blue cover the grass and throw itself into the water. It was only when they were making their way back to the house that he noticed that Jim was carrying somebody equally as wet and cold as Joanna.

If Lady Christine hadn’t risked her own life in the dark water, full of reeds and God only knew what other dangers, then his beloved Joanna wouldn’t be here right now. McCoy knew that there was no way he could ever repay her for the gift she had given him, and that he would be in her debt for the rest of his life.

A door opening and closing caught his attention, and Jim and Miss Rand entered the room.

“She’s sleeping now,” McCoy said unnecessarily.

“She’s had a big shock,” Miss Rand said quietly. “No doubt her body needs rest.”

“Like you do, Bones,” Jim told him. “You look like you aged twenty years in as many minutes.”

“I will stay with her, your lordship,” Miss Rand told him kindly. “Until you’ve rested and are ready to return.”

McCoy shook his head immediately.

“She’s only just gone off,” he lied. “I can’t risk waking her by moving.”

With consummate timing, Joanna let out a feminine snore. Miss Rand smiled.

“I believe Lady Joanna will be sleeping soundly for many hours,” she said firmly. “And if you’ll forgive me, I think you could do with some rest of your own. I will not leave her side, my lord, and if she wakes, I will send for you.”

“Come on Bones,” echoed Jim. “You’re getting mud all over Joanna’s clean sheets. Come and get changed, and have a drink.”

Between them, Jim and Miss Rand coaxed him from his daughter’s side. As he left the room McCoy saw Miss Rand settle at Joanna’s bedside, an embroidery basket and a novel in a familiar binding sitting on the bedside table. He made a note to ask Jim just how one of the novels he had given him had ended up in the hands of his daughter’s governess, but he suspected that he knew the answer to that.

He suffered the attention of his valet in the changing of his clothes, and sat down to a meal with the admiral, his wife and Jim, although the stiff whiskey he drank after the food was of far more use to him.

Eventually, he pulled himself together enough to ask about the health of his daughter’s rescuer.

“How is Lady Christine?” he asked the duchess. “I trust that she has not taken ill after being immersed in the river.”

“I left her sleeping,” the duchess said. “But she seems unharmed by the incident. Thank goodness our father insisted on us learning how to swim.”

“If he had not, my daughter would have died today. It seems that I am in his debt, as well as your sister’s,” McCoy said, shaking his head.

“You must not think of yourself as in anybody’s debt,” corrected the duchess. “Christine merely acted in the same way as anybody else would have, and I know that if she were here she would say exactly the same thing.”

“If she is well enough for visitors tomorrow, I would like to thank her in person, as I am sure Joanna would.”

“I think it is best that she have as many visitors as possible,” the admiral observed. “Lady Christine is not somebody that copes well with inactivity.”

“Bones is the same way,” Jim said, pushing his food around on his plate with his fork. He was uncharacteristically lacking in appetite, and had barely touched his dinner. McCoy knew the reason; if the thought of losing Joanna wasn’t enough, Jim had been regaling him with his romantic woes for the best part of their walk around the lake. McCoy had finally convinced him to unload his mind, and once the tap was open the information spurted forth. Miss Rand had refused his proposal of marriage, and was remaining firm. None of his arguments could sway her, even though she claimed to love him. He was at the point of finding his nearest relation and dumping the dukedom on him, reasoning that his elevated social standing was their biggest problem.

McCoy had been trying to convince him of the idiocy of this course of action when they had witnessed Joanna fall into the river.

Jim insisted on accompanying McCoy when he went to check on Joanna after dinner. Miss Rand was sitting at the girl’s bedside, embroidery basket at her side.

“She has not woken up, my lord,” she said, rising immediately when the men came into the room. “She has slept soundly.”

McCoy carefully picked up Joanna’s small wrist and felt for her pulse. He located it without difficulty; it was steady and sure. Her skin was warm, and she had a healthy colour.

“You must be hungry,” McCoy said to her. “You must go and find yourself something to eat.”

“My lord,” Miss Rand began, and stopped to wipe at her face. “My lord, I wish to offer you my most sincere apology for what happened this afternoon, and I understand completely if you wish to dismiss me from my position.”

“Dismiss you?” McCoy asked, bemused. “Why on earth would I want to do something like that?”

“I should have been supervising Lady Joanna directly,” Miss Rand sobbed. “Not sitting inside planning lessons.”

“I was in charge of Joanna’s supervision,” McCoy corrected her. “And I chose to leave her playing with a puppy while I walked away. If anyone is to blame for today’s accident, it is me.”

“Or Joanna, for walking on a bridge that she was forbidden to cross by both her governess and her father,” Jim said dryly.

“Exactly,” McCoy said firmly. “So, let’s have none of this nonsense, please. If Joanna catches wind of it, she will use it to manipulate her way into strawberries at every meal.”

Miss Rand smiled, and McCoy could see exactly why his best friend was so in love with her. She was an uncommonly pretty young woman.

“You need a good night’s sleep as well,” he ordered. “The duchess will have some sleeping powders. I will send one to your room with a hot drink. I’d like you to take it, please.”

“Very well, my lord,” Miss Rand said, drying her eyes with the back of her hand. She nodded her head to the two men and left the room. McCoy started an internal countdown in his head, and as soon as he reached zero Jim blurted out “I will make sure she gets to her room safely.”

McCoy bit back the observation that Miss Rand occupied the room next door; if Jim had a chance of convincing her to marry him it was now, when she was emotionally compromised. It was not a very honourable tactic, but it might work. McCoy debated, then slid the connecting door between the two rooms open a little. Sure enough, he heard Jim pleading with Miss Rand just to let him speak to her. Miss Rand, an honourable young woman to the end, refused to open the door. The sound of her gentle sobs into her pillow made him feel incredibly unhappy, and he rang for a maid and issued instructions for the sleeping powder to be given to Miss Rand, along with a hot toddy. He lingered in Joanna’s room, watching her sleep, until he heard Miss Rand receive the drink through the connecting doorway. Then he left and headed back to his own room, and fell into an exhausted sleep of his own.

[ ](http://www.dejting-guiden.se/)  
---  
[dejtingsajter](http://www.dejting-guiden.se/dejtingsajter/)


	11. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 5962/64599  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Chapter Eleven: Where nobody in Berkely Hall seems to be in the correct bedchamber._

 

It was the sound of crying that woke Christine up in the middle of the night. She lay there, puzzled for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she had dreamed the noise, when she heard it again. She pulled on a robe and opened the door of her chamber to investigate, and found Joanna sitting huddled against the wall, crying her eyes out.

“Joanna!” Christine said, in surprise. “Whatever is the matter?”

The child looked up, saw Christine and wailed loudly, her little body wracking with the force of her sobs. Christine bent down and opened her arms to the child, who latched onto her immediately, burying her head in Christine’s shoulder. Christine, at a loss to what to do with the obviously terrified child, took her back inside her chamber. The child was shivering, so Christine pulled a blanket from her bed and wrapped it awkwardly around both her and the child and sat down on one of the chairs.

“What brought all this on, eh?” she asked again, as the child’s sobs started to quieten.

“Bad dream,” Joanna said between hiccoughing sobs. “I had a bad dream.”

“Ah,” said Christine, enlightened. “Was it about what happened today?”

Joanna nodded, and began to cry again.

“I want my Papa,” she said into Christine’s damp shoulder. “But I can’t find him, and Miss Rand won’t wake up.”

“Right,” Christine said. “Do you know where your Papa’s room is?”

The child shook her head, looking particularly woebegone. You’d have to have had a heart of stone not to help her, Christine thought.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find him,” Christine promised. “Stand up now, let’s get you wrapped up in the blanket. Where are your slippers?”

“Buttons has chewed one,” Joanna said, wiping her eyes as Christine bundled her more firmly into the blanket.

“You’ll have to teach him not to do that,” Christine said absently as she hunted around for a pair of bedsocks for Joanna to wear. They were far too big, but at least they would stop her feet from freezing. It may be spring, but nights in Berkely Hall were incredibly cold.

“I’m going to take you to your Papa,” Christine told Joanna. “But you have to be very, very quiet, do you understand? Quieter than a mouse. We can’t wake anybody up.”

Joanna nodded solemnly, and Christine lifted her into her arms again. The child was slender and light, far more so than Christine had been at her age. She was smaller too; perhaps she took after her mother, Christine thought as she walked down the passageway and out of the ladies’ wing. The door to the main corridor let out a horribly loud squeak, and Joanna stiffened in Christine’s arms as they waited for discovery. Only the princess, Miss Rand, Joanna and herself slept in that wing. All of the men of the party, except the admiral, slept in the unmarried man’s wing of the house. If Christine was found there in the dead of night her reputation would be ruined.

But she had a crying child in her arms, and a spotless reputation was worth nothing if she had no care for the needs of a child.

Carrying Joanna meant that she could not also carry a candle, and the dark halls of the Hall were lit only by what little moonlight made it through the windows. Luckily, Christine did not trip as she navigated the unfamiliar route. The large double doors to the gentlemen’s wing opened easily but they waited to see if anybody would fling open their door and demand to know who had made the noise. They were in luck, and they were able to walk carefully down the corridor. Una, as was the usual custom, had written the name of the inhabitant of the room on a card attached to the door. Squinting in the darkness, she was able to make out the earl’s title in Una’s careful, precise handwriting.

Christine raised her hand to knock, but thought better of it. The noise might wake people other than the earl. She gripped the door handle tightly and twisted, and the door opened noiselessly. She stepped inside, and pulled the door shut behind her. Joanna immediately wriggled loose and ran to the bed.

“Papa!” she exclaimed, and jumped onto the sleeping form on the bed.

“Jo?”

The earl’s voice was sleep-roughened, and he sounded alarmed.

“I had a bad dream!” Joanna said, throwing herself into his arms, tears starting up again. “I was drowning in the lake”

“It’s all right, baby girl, you’re safe now,” he soothed, a large hand rubbing gently at Joanna’s back. “How did you find me?”

“I brought her,” Christine said, stepping out of the shadows. “I found her crying outside my door.”

“Miss Rand wouldn’t wake up,” Joanna sobbed. “I got scared.”

“I told her to take one of the duchess’ sleeping powders,” the earl said to his daughter, stroking her hair. “That’s why she didn’t wake up.”

There was silence for while, punctuated only by Joanna’s small sobs and the quiet murmurings of the earl as he calmed her down. Feeling out of place and unnecessary, Christine found herself hunting out the tinderbox that every guest room in Berkely Hall was equipped with. Once she had located it on the mantel above the fireplace, where the one in her room had been placed, she lit the candles sitting on the bedside table. What she saw took her breath away.

The earl must have been feeling warm in the night, because he had discarded his night shirt. Christine had never seen a man so naked before, and she found her eyes straying to the sheet tucked around his waist to determine whether he was naked from the waist down also. She pulled her eyes up sharply, but that was not much better. He must be one of the men that patronised Gentleman Jackson’s saloon in Bond Street, because he did not have the body of an indolent nobleman. His muscles were so well defined that she was sure that she could use him as an anatomical chart. It would certainly be no hardship to study him. A dusting of dark hair over his chest made her stare; none of the statues or pictures she had ever seen in museums had shown men with hair there before.

Luckily the earl’s attention was on his daughter, and not on her shameless appreciation of his body. The dim candlelight would also help to disguise the blush that she knew was threatening to stain her cheeks.

The comfort of her father’s arms was enough to settle Joanna. Within minutes of his ministrations, she was asleep again. Christine looked around for somewhere to sit, but there was nowhere other than the edge of the large bed. It was beyond the grounds of all propriety for her to sit there, but then it was also shameful of her to be in the presence of an unmarried, half-naked man in only her nightwear. If she was to ruin her reputation, she would do it in comfort. Christine sat on the edge of the bed, and reached out a hand to smooth Joanna’s curls.

“I haven’t had the chance to thank you for saving her life today,” the earl said quietly. “Now it appears that I have to thank you again.”

“No thanks are necessary,” Christine said quickly. “Truly, I only acted as anybody else would have.”

The earl stared at her with his dark eyes. Christine couldn’t look away; something about the man made her feel like she was prey, and he a powerful hawk intent on swooping down and capturing her. She was sure that prey was supposed to run away, but she wanted to run _to_ him.

“Your sister believed you would say as much; it appears she was correct.”

“Una is always correct,” Christine sighed. “It is what makes her such an annoying older sister.”

The earl laughed quietly.

“I have no siblings,” he admitted. “It was my greatest wish to have a large family, so my children did not grow up as alone as I did. Now Joanna is also an only child.”

Was Christine mistaken, or did he flick a quick glance at her to see how she reacted to that statement? Well, prey she might be, but she was no coward.

“You might marry again,” she offered. “And have more children. Joanna would then have siblings. I think she would play the part of an older sister very well.”

“I have been thinking of the subject more and more,” the earl said, after a moment’s hesitation. “But there is not only my happiness to consider. I could not marry anybody who would not be prepared to consider Joanna their own child.”

“Such closeness would take time, I feel,” Christine replied, hesitating herself. “Affection may be given freely, but true love must be allowed to develop in its own way. Joanna would naturally resent anybody that came between you and her. It would not be an easy adjustment to make, either for her or for...” She caught herself in time. “The lady that you would wish to marry,” she finished.

“I would be lucky to find somebody who would learn to love Joanna as they would their own child,” the earl said.

“I do not think it would be that hard,” Christine replied, looking at the child asleep in her father’s arms. “Joanna would be an easy child to love.”

The earl snorted.

“She’s bad tempered, stubborn and is at risk of becoming the most spoiled child in London.”

“So was I once,” Christine said wryly. “Or has Jim not told you of the many times I pushed him into something unpleasant?”

“You turned out very well indeed,” the earl said warmly. “Perhaps there is hope for Joanna yet.”

They fell into a companionable silence.

“I should return Joanna to her bed,” the earl said at last. “If she is not there when the maids come in to light the fires then the house will be in uproar.”

“Going back will be easier than getting here,” Christine said good-humouredly. “Now that I will be able to hold a candle.”

The earl pushed back the covers to his bed to reveal that he was sleeping in a loose pair of cotton trousers. Christine had never seen such nightwear before, and remarked as such.

“I met a Hindi sailor while on the _Enterprise_ , who wore something very similar. He called them pyjamas, and they are most comfortable. I much prefer them to a nightshirt.”

He picked up Joanna, and Christine opened the door. However, they had only gone a few steps down the corridor of the gentlemen’s wing when a door further ahead in the corridor opened unexpectedly and light shone out into the dark. Murmured voices helped disguise Christine’s gasp of shock.

“In here,” hissed the earl, stepping into one of the deep window enclosures. Christine followed him in, blowing out the candle.

In the open doorway Prince Hikaru stepped out, naked to the waist, carrying his shirt, cravat and jacket loosely over his arm.

“I must go,” he said in his heavily accented English. “Do not tempt me to stay.”

Prince Pavel appeared in the doorway, a loose sheet tucked around his waist. He, too, was naked, and reached out to caress the taller man’s face.

“I wish you could stay until morning,” he sighed.

Prince Hikaru dropped a kiss into his lover’s palm.

“One day,” he promised. “I promise, my love, one day.”

With one final, passionate kiss, the lovers parted. Prince Pavel reluctantly shut his door, and Prince Hikaru walked further down the corridor to his own room. Christine counted to twenty after hearing the second door shut, and let out a long breath.

“Well,” she said finally. “I didn’t know about _that_.”

“Ladies of your station shouldn’t,” McCoy muttered. “Come on, before they decide to open their doors again.”

The hastened their way down the corridor and out onto the main byways of the Hall.  
Christine was silent as she pondered the implications of what they had seen. She had heard tales of men who loved each other as men and women did, but she hadn’t ever seen any proof of it before. Or maybe she had, she thought in surprise. She would never have guessed that there was anything other than a fraternal feeling between the two princes; if she had been so wrong about them who knows what else she might have missed?

“I hope you were not offended, my lady,” the earl said eventually, his whisper sounding over Joanna’s light snores.

“By the princes? No,” Christine replied eventually. “I feel very sad for them, actually. I think it monstrously unfair that they cannot show their love as another couple would.”

“That is not the usual view of society,” the earl told her. Even in the dark, Christine could see him scowl.

“Then society is wrong,” Christine said firmly. “Love is love. People that love each other should be allowed to be with each other.”

The earl was silent again for a little while as they traversed a staircase. Christine began to get worried. Had she spoken too forcefully? Had she ventured the wrong opinion, and angered him? A righteous anger began to warm her belly. Well, too bad. That was her opinion, and to hell with the earl if he didn’t respect it. Who did he think he was, anyway, making rules about who could and could not love one another?

She was on the verge of opening her mouth to tell the earl just what she thought of his views when luckily, he spoke first.

“I agree with you completely,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Love is a force that should not be denied.”

That took the wind directly out from her sails.

“Good,” she said eventually. “I would hate for us not to agree on so important a subject.”

That took them up to the door of the women’s wing, which squeaked loudly again as Christine eased it open. They winced, but there was no noise from the corridor ahead.

“Almost there,” Christine whispered as they entered the wing. “Joanna’s room is near the end of the...”

She was cut off as another door opened suddenly.

“Not again,” groaned the earl.

“In here,” commanded Christine, whisking back the curtains of another window. The earl shuffled in after her, and the curtains fell shut. There was a crack between the folds of material and Christine peered through it. Light spilled from the princess’ room, and Prince Spock stepped out.

“I will send a communication to the embassy in the morning,” he said in low tones. “They will send it on to my father in Vulcania.”

“You are willing to risk his wrath for me?” the princess asked, coming into view. She was brazenly, unashamedly naked. Christine admired her figure, and her obliviousness to the cold.

It was clear that Spock was also not unaffected by the sight.

“I would risk my life for you,” he said simply. “Although logic dictates that our relationship would benefit from both parties being alive to enjoy it. There are many male relations to assume the throne if my father disapproves of our union. We will go to Africa, and live there, or remain in Europe. Whatever pleases you.”

“You make it sound very easy,” she sighed.

“That is because it is,” he said calmly. “I do not believe you have taken into account the influence of my mother on my father’s decisions. She has been quite insistent that I take a wife for some years now. News that I plan to do so will please her greatly. “

“So Vulcanian men are used to being led by their women?” the princess teased.

“ _Certain_ men,” the prince allowed.

The princess stood on her toes to kiss her lover, and Christine was fascinated by the way that the prince’s large, pale hands came to rest around her waist so naturally, as if they had fallen there a hundred times before. For all she knew, they probably had.

They eventually parted, with low whispers in a language that Christine did not understand. The door shut, and Spock walked noiselessly down the corridor, closing the door to the wing behind him with its usual squeak.

“Come on, it’s safe,” Christine whispered.

They made their way out of the window enclosure and headed directly for Joanna’s room. Christine opened the door for the earl, and pulled back the bedclothes to allow him to settle Joanna in. Buttons, still asleep, scrabbled his legs as he dreamt about chasing his ball.

“Some guard dog he is,” the earl sighed.

“He’s a baby,” Christine said fondly. “Give him time.”

The earl dropped one last kiss on Joanna’s forehead, and they left the room. They walked the few feet to Christine’s room, and they paused outside the door.

“Thank you again for what you did today,” the earl said quietly. “You saved my daughter’s life, and I will never forget it.”

Christine opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a familiar squeak.

“Who the hell is that?” the earl cursed.

Thinking quickly, Christine threw open the door to her room, grabbed the earl by the wrist and yanked him inside, closing the door behind them almost until it shut.

“Sssh!” she instructed the earl, as she put her eye to the crack. He leaned in close behind her, and used his greater height to peer through also.

A lone figure carrying a flaming candelabrum was picking his way down the corridor, staring at the name cards. The light from the candles picked up on his gold hair, revealing his identity to the couple behind the door.

“Idiot,” the earl said softly.

“He’s really using too many candles,” Christine agreed.

They heard a soft knocking on Miss Rand’s door.

“Janice?” they heard Jim say quietly. “Janice, it’s Jim. Please let me in.”

There was no reply from the sleeping woman.

“I know you can hear me Janice,” Jim said, completely incorrectly. “So I’m just going to sit here and wait for you to open the door.”

“He wouldn’t!” Christine gasped.

“He would,” the earl said glumly.

“Fine,” said Jim, stubbornly. “I’m sitting down now. If anybody finds me here you’ll _have_ to marry me.”

And he did sit down, his back directly against the door.

“I have a book,” he said. “I can wait.”

And he pulled a small book from his pocket and began to read.

“Does your room connect to another?” the earl asked urgently.

“No,” Christine said, casting round to see whether she had missed an extra door in the wall at some point in the last six weeks.

“It means that I’m stuck here until he leaves, or falls asleep,” the earl told her, backing away from the door.

He paced into the middle of the room, and the moonlight lit his body with a silver light. In the darkness he looked rather like Oberon, Christine fancied, although she would never admit to the proudly masculine man that she had once compared him to a king of the fairy people. Somehow, she thought that he wouldn’t see it as the compliment it was.

“Is that such a bad thing?” she asked, her voice not betraying the delighted panic she was feeling. At least, she hoped it wasn’t. She knew that she should be horrified that their predicament, but she found herself more concerned with getting the earl to kiss her, so she would know that the feelings she had for him were returned.

His back was turned to her, so she could not see his expression. The muscles in his back were tense, and she wished she were able to run her hands along them to relieve the stress there. Her palms practically itched to do so.

“Being alone with you here is both a wonder and torture,” he said eventually, turning to face her.

She stiffened, insulted.

“A _torture_?” she asked frostily.

He had the gall to smile at her! He walked back towards her lazily, stopping only when they were practically nose to nose. She could feel the heat from his skin and the breath from his lips. If she leant only a little further their mouths would be touching. She bit her lip, trying to remain resolute.

“A torture, my lady, because I promised myself the next time I saw you in that delicious ensemble I would take great pleasure in peeling it from you piece by piece. And now here you are, and here I am, behind a door that is as good as locked, and I am finding it _very_ hard not to just reach out and remove it.”

It was true, she could tell; he had a hungry look in his eye, and it thrilled her down to her core. Swallowing heavily, she found her voice.

“Well then,” she heard herself say. “What’s stopping you?”

Boldly, brazenly, she stepped forward and brought her mouth to his. His lips were soft and warm, but that was all she had time to register before his strong arm snaked around her waist and pulled her flush against his taut body and she was lost in the bliss of his embrace. His other hand snaked up to her hair, and he let the silken strands slip through his fingers as he loosened her pins and let the mass of her hair fall. Emboldened, she wrapped her arms around his neck and groaned as he began to pepper her neck with kisses.

“Oh God, what you do to me,” he growled, letting the hand around her waist slip down to caress her backside. Every movement of his hand over her body brought with it a wave of pleasure that rocked her to her core.

Gaila had told her about the effect that women had on men, about how his manhood would stiffen and lengthen. She had also told her about what would happen to her body and sure enough Christine could feel herself become slick with moisture. Curiosity made her slip a hand across the front of his pyjamas, and sure enough, she found a hardness there. She blinked as she realised how big he was. Gaila had told her about _that_ too.

Suddenly the world shifted as he let out a noise that she was positive was a growl, picked her up and practically threw her onto the bed. He quickly followed, pinning her with his heavier body. They kissed passionately, hands roaming over every exposed inch of skin they could reach. Christine gave into some primitive urge and rocked her hips upwards into his, and they both groaned in pleasure, so Christine did it again.

“Stop!” he panted.

“Stop?” she said in amazement. “My God, why?”

“Because I’m about two minutes away from ruining you forever,” he ground out. “We have to stop. We have to do this properly.”

He sat up and away from her, resting back on his knees.

“I didn’t have any problems with the way we were doing things just now,” grumbled Christine, and he laughed and leaned forward to kiss her briefly again.

“I had made up my mind to ask permission to court you properly,” he said, shaking his head.  
“You have my permission,” Christine told him, crawling forward towards him and angling her head to kiss along the exposed length of his jaw and neck.

“There should be drives in the park,” he mumbled into the junction of her neck and her shoulder as his hands slid down over her breasts to squeeze them gently. “I should fetch you lemonade at balls and waltz with you.”

“What a waste of time when we could be doing this,” Christine sighed.

“You’re not making this any easier for me,” he grumbled.

“Start as you mean to go on, that’s what I say,” giggled Christine.

“You’re an incorrigible minx,” he said playfully, tweaking her nipples with his large fingers. She squealed in surprise, then begged breathlessly,

“Do that again.”

“You see?” he sighed as he complied, a wicked grin on his face. “Incorrigible. “

“And you love me for it,” she teased, allowing her fingers to trace the muscles of his abdomen.

“Absolutely,” he said softly. “I love you, Christine. More so than I can find words to say.”

“Oh thank God,” she breathed. “For I think I have been in love with you since I saw you standing on the steps.”

“You will marry me, won’t you?” he asked urgently as he seized the hem of her nightgown and pulled it up and over her head.

“Wait,” she said, placing her hand in the middle of his chest. “You won’t stop me from studying, will you? Leonard, this is important.”

“My darling, I will employ the finest tutors in the land to teach you anything you wish to know,” he promised, picking up the hand and kissing each of the fingertips in turn. “You will have a study, and a laboratory, and a library of your own. I will take you to lectures, and buy you any book you wish to read. You have my solemn vow.”

“Oh yes, yes, yes!” she chorused. “Yes, I’ll marry you. And we’ll have children, lots of them, and have the big family you always wanted. And I promise to love Joanna, just as one of my own.”

“You’re perfect,” he marvelled. “So wonderfully, wonderfully perfect.”

Christine lost track of all time that night; seconds blurred into minutes into hours as the man she loved slowly, with infinite patience and skill, showed her just how much pleasure her body could bring her. He knew her everywhere; there was not an inch of her skin that he did not trail hot kisses over, discovering every freckle and every ticklish spot. Whenever she tried to reciprocate she was met with a firm grunt of displeasure and a small nip of his teeth. Her legs parted wantonly, and he sucked and licked at the tender flesh of her thighs greedily as she squirmed and panted beneath him. The pleasure was threatening to overwhelm her, already she could feel it rising in her in great waves. She felt like a small boat in a storm-tossed sea, pulled this way and that by forces too great for her to control.

It wasn’t until he dipped his head and ran his tongue up the inside of her most feminine parts that she knew what real pleasure felt like, and it wasn’t until he started to lave and suckle at the small pink pearl there that she knew total and complete oblivion. The rolling waves of pleasure crashed down over her, drowning her in her senses. She may even have blacked out; she wasn’t sure. She clutched onto him with tight fingers and he covered her body with his own, murmuring words of love that she couldn’t quite hear over the noise of her own heartbeat thundering in her ears.

“Oh my,” she said at last, panting for breath. “If that’s what being ruined is like I can understand why it’s so popular.”

He snorted a laugh into her shoulder.

“You have not been completely ruined,” he told her.

“No,” she replied, rolling onto her side. “And why not?”

“Because I would like to save something for our wedding night,” he said firmly. “And I do not want to have to admit to your parents that we must be married immediately because of a hasty moment now. I want to do this properly, Christine.”

“It doesn’t seem very fair to you,” Christine pointed out. She looked down at his swollen member, red and glistening with drops of fluid. Boldly, she reached out and trailed her fingers along it. He groaned at the pleasurable sensation.

“So firm,” Christine marvelled, “and yet as soft to touch as velvet.”

His large hand closed over hers, and he gently adjusted her grip to one he found favourable.  
“Firm strokes,” he said through clenched teeth. “That’s it, like that....so good, honey, so, so good...a little faster now...”

Christine watched in fascination as her ministrations had a powerful affect on her lover. His breath came in short pants, his skin reddened and sweat beaded on his forehead. She thought about how pleasurable his mouth had been on her, and daringly she swooped down to take the head of his member into her mouth.

Gaila had warned her about this, and what would happen, but it still came as a surprise when his hips stuttered and more of his length slid into her mouth. She squealed in surprise, and it seemed that the vibration was enough to bring on his pleasure, as he emptied himself into her mouth. Luckily, Gaila had warned her about this, too, and she swallowed as much as she could without choking. Some of his essence escaped her mouth and he darted out a thumb to catch it. Feeling especially bold, she sucked his thumb into her mouth, and cleaned it with her tongue.

“Part of me wants to know where you learned that,” he said eventually, laying down on the sheets and pulling her to him. “And part of me is scared to learn the answer.”

“I have an incredibly informative maid,” Christine yawned. “And not every book in the library downstairs is about science, you know. There is a very informative French section that Una cannot know is there.”

“Perhaps I should buy you some different books,” he chuckled. “French ones.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Christine said sleepily.

They lay together drowsily, fingers tracing loose patterns over the skin of the other.

“Leonard, ours will not be a long engagement, will it?” asked Christine eventually. “I do not think I could bear not doing that again soon.”

He laughed, and kissed her hair.

“Not over-long,” he allowed. “But Arundel House must be made ready before the Countess can make it her home, and it is in a shocking state. And Joanna must be allowed to come to terms with what this will mean for her.”

“You are right,” she said, a little sadness creeping into her voice. “We must give her the time she needs to adjust to this.”

“An engaged couple are allowed a little leeway,” he consoled her. “We will be able to have some time alone.”

“The longer you wait for something, the more pleasure you get when it finally arrives,” Christine sighed. “I will be patient.”

“It will be worth it, my love,” he promised.

Christine rolled in closer to his body, shut her eyes, and fell asleep.

 

McCoy did not let himself fall asleep as the risk of being discovered in Christine’s chambers was too great. Instead he allowed himself the pleasure of caressing her skin and stroking her hair as she slept in his arms. Light was beginning to turn the dark sky into a pale grey when he carefully moved her aside and got out of bed. He pulled on his pyjama trousers and kissed her goodbye, then carefully opened her door.

In the corridor, Jim was slumped against the door to Miss Rand’s room, fast asleep. His book had fallen to the floor, and his candles were burned down to the nub. McCoy sighed, and shook his friend awake.

“Get up you idiot,” he hissed. “Before you ruin everything.”

Jim was one of those annoying people that snapped into wakefulness immediately.

“What are you doing here, Bones?” he asked, confused.

“I could ask the same thing about you,” McCoy grumbled, yanking Jim up by the arm and propelling him down the corridor. “I was looking for you,” he lied. “And you weren’t in your room.”

“Looking for me? Why?” Jim asked, looking back over his shoulder with sorrow at the resolutely closed door of Miss Rand’s room.

“I want to propose to Christine,” McCoy told him, half truthfully. “And I wanted your blessing.”

By now they were out into the main corridor, a safe distance away from the ladies’ wing.

“Bones!” Jim said joyfully, clapping him on the shoulder. “What fantastic news! Of course you have my blessing!” A wicked look crossed his handsome features. “I cannot think of anybody more suitable to harass you in your declining years than the virago you wish to marry!”

“I would call you out for that insult to my lady’s honour,” McCoy said mildly, “But I have the suspicion that she would do a better job herself, so I will pass on your felicitations and have a suitable net handy to retrieve you from the river.”

“Will you be speaking to the Admiral today? He’s Christine’s closest male relative here, unless you’re planning to go up to Town to speak to her father.”

Jim stopped suddenly and dug his heels into the expensive rug that carpeted the corridor.

“Unless you have need of a special license?” he said suspiciously.

“We do not,” McCoy growled. “And I thank you not to go around saying such things. This wedding will be done properly. Besides, I must finish Arundel House before bringing back a bride, and Joanna must be introduced to the idea of having a step-mama. It would be a cruel thing to do to spring a wedding on the child.”

Jim’s face cleared back to its usual easy smile.

“Then I hope you will ask me to stand up with you at your wedding, and I wish you both joy.”

By now they had reached their own wing of the house, and Jim had followed McCoy into McCoy’s room and made himself comfortable at the foot of McCoy’s bed, pulling a blanket up over his legs. For the want of anywhere else to sit, McCoy got back under the covers. They looked for all the world like two young misses at a slumber party, and McCoy prayed that Jim would not make the connection otherwise there would be too many jokes to cope with at this time of the morning.

“So, what on earth did you hope to achieve by camping outside Miss Rand’s room when you knew she had taken a sleeping powder?” McCoy asked pointedly.

“The sleeping powder,” Jim said in dismay. “I had forgotten that.”

“She would have been dead to the world last night,” McCoy told him. “What were you thinking, man?”

Jim sighed despondently. “It was not one of my finer moments,” he admitted. “I thought that perhaps if she thought her reputation was compromised, she would marry me.”

Silence reigned in the bedchamber, with the only noise coming from the soft tick of the clock on the mantelpiece.

“It was a shabby way to treat her, Jim,” McCoy said at last. “But you could have done worse, I suppose.”

“No,” Jim said coldly. “I could not have, and if you think for one minute that I am capable of... _forcing_ Miss Rand then...”

“Oh shut up,” McCoy told him. “Of course I do not think you would have forced Miss Rand. But I do think that you must learn to honour the lady’s decision. What if you had succeeded last night? What do you think it is like, married to a woman that despises you? Because, my friend, that is exactly how she would feel, and I have lived that life and it is soul destroying.”

“I love her, Bones,” Jim said bleakly.

“And she loves you, moron,” McCoy replied, not without affection. “But the reality of your situation requires something more than love, and it must be up to Miss Rand to decide if she is willing to take that risk. If you force her hand, you will lose her forever.”

Jim sighed heavily, and retreated further under the blankets.

 

[ ](http://www.dejting-guiden.se/)  
---  
[dejtingsajter](http://www.dejting-guiden.se/dejtingsajter/)  
  
  



	12. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[**searingidolatry**](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/) who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 7128/64599  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Chapter Twelve: Where there are unexpected guests and the grand plan of the Grand Dames is revealed_

McCoy decided to approach the admiral as soon as possible. He knew that he would still have to request an interview with Christine’s father, but the admiral was the closest male representative of her family here at Berkely and it would be remiss of McCoy not to inform him immediately of his intentions.

He found the admiral in his study at eight in the morning, poring over a sheaf of official documents that had arrived yesterday by dispatch rider from London. Such riders had been galloping back and forth frequently in the last few weeks as the secret talks had been taking place. It was a measure of the trust that the Admiral had in McCoy that he did not cover the documents when McCoy entered the room; out of respect for that trust, McCoy did not glance down at the desk separating the two men.

“McCoy!” the admiral said cheerfully. “This is a surprise.”

“I hope I am not disturbing you, sir,” McCoy began.

“Not at all,” the admiral said, waving him to a seat. “The talks are going most well. We have almost concluded our business.”

“I am glad to hear it,” McCoy told him. “I am sure that the Prince Regent is appreciative of your efforts.”

The admiral pulled a face that expressed his true feelings towards the Regent far more eloquently than words ever could.

“You did not seek me out at this time of the morning to discuss the Regent, McCoy,” he said shrewdly. “Come, tell me what is on your mind.”

McCoy swallowed heavily.

“I am here to talk to you in your capacity as Lady Christine’s closest male relative,” he began nervously, but was cut off by the sound of the admiral’s hand slapping down heavily on the oak desk.

A lesser man would have retreated backwards; McCoy held his ground.

“Hell and damnation!” the admiral cursed.

McCoy blinked in astonishment, then started to feel angry in defence of his suit. What was it that made the admiral think he was a poor match for his sister-in-law? His emotions must have shown on his face, because the admiral immediately began to laugh.

“My apologies, McCoy, I meant no offense. It was just that my lady wife and I have had a wager on when you would come knocking on my door, and I had laid twenty guineas on a week hence. She wagered on this week, and will never let this victory go.”

The admiral stood and made his way around to the other side of the desk. He thrust his hand out to McCoy, who stood and shook it, slightly bemused.

“I cannot speak for the Earl of Shrewsbury, but I think this is a very fine match, McCoy, and I am very happy for the both of you. You should know that the duchess is also very much in favour of your marriage to Lady Christine.”

“Thank you, your Grace,” McCoy said, feeling slightly better about the whole affair.

“I will of course write to the Earl and Countess as once, and invite them to Berkely,” the admiral went on. “It will give you time to get to know one another before he gives his formal consent, but I am sure that will just be a technicality. He is a most reasonable man, and one that puts the happiness of his daughters above all else.”

“Ours will not be a short engagement,” McCoy told the admiral. “Arundel House is not yet ready for a mistress, and Joanna must be happy with the idea that I am to remarry. There will be time for the earl to get to know me.”

“The Shrewsbury girls are used to waiting a long time for their men,” the older man said with a wry look on his face. “Do yourself a favour, McCoy, and do not wait over-long to marry.”

McCoy nodded, pleased with the way the interview had turned out. He bid goodbye to the admiral, and exited the office. A soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Christine stole out from behind a statue of Greek goddess that had ended up gracing the corridor of Berkely Hall.

“What did he say?” she asked breathlessly, taking McCoy by the hand and tugging him down the corridor. “Does he approve?”

“He does,” McCoy assured her, and was rewarded with a pleasant armful of happy, excited woman. “He will write to your parents today, and invite them down to Berkely.”

Christine beamed at him, temporarily dazzling him with the beauty of her smile. He knew instinctively that his duty from now until the day he died would be to ensure that she smiled like that at least once a day, and allow nothing to upset or disappoint her.

“I must go and tell Una,” she said excitedly, “and share our good news.”

They walked arm in arm along the corridor that led towards the private chambers of the ducal couple, talking about Arundel House and the repairs that he had already organised. They were having a good natured argument about the necessity of extending the library when they passed a set of windows that overlooked the long, winding drive.

“Is that a carriage?” McCoy asked, peering through the glass.

“Those are several carriages,” Christine corrected. She looked more closely at the distant view. “In fact,” she added. “Those are carriages belonging to my parents.”

“Not just your parents,” McCoy told her. “That’s the Dowager’s personal carriage, I’d recognise the colour anywhere.”

It was true that the Dowager Duchess of Albany had the only scarlet carriage in London; when she travelled, everybody knew who she was and where she was going. Having the scarlet carriage pull up at your door immediately raised your current social standing; having it sail by your home was a snub of the highest order. It was one of the more subtle ways that the dowager ruled London’s social elite with an iron fist.

It was no wonder, McCoy reflected, that Miss Rand was so nervous of becoming Jim’s wife.

“There’s another carriage behind it,” Christine said excitedly, her nose pressed up against the glass. “And it’s even more fine than the dowager’s.”

It was true that the last carriage in the convoy was larger and possessed more fine gilt and shiny brass fittings than either of the other carriages. As they all got closer to the house, Christine was able to make out the coat of arms painted on the side.

“Gosh,” she said, impressed. “Those are the arms of the Vulcanian royal family. It must be a relation of Spock’s.”

McCoy pursed his lips.

“You had better go and warn your sister,” he advised. “I will go and tell the admiral of their imminent arrival.”

“Alright,” she agreed, and bravely snatched a quick kiss before hurrying away. McCoy found himself touching his lips as he watched her disappear down the corridor, before grinning and striding back quickly the way he had came.

 

Abandoning all pretence of ladylike behaviour, Christine sprinted down the corridors as fast as he skirts would allow her. She barrelled through the door of her sister’s chambers and skidded to a stop in the middle of the room. Una was being laced into her simple half-corset by Barry, her maid.

“My God, is the house on fire?” Una asked sharply. Mornings were not her best time, especially as she could no longer stomach coffee. Being around the duchess for the first few hours of the day had been likened to trying to walk on eggshells.

Christine stared curiously at her sister’s half-dressed form. In this state, it was much easier to see the soft swelling in her abdomen that, in a few months, would be her first niece or nephew. In a few months, she realised with a strange excitement, she too could be in the beginning of such a state. That was something that she would have to discuss with her fiancé; she did not think that she would want to become _enceinte_ too soon. There must be a way of delaying conception; perhaps Una’s midwife would know something of it. Too late, she realised she had been woolgathering.

“Mama’s coming,” she blurted out.

“Here?” Una said in bewilderment.

“Now,” warned Christine. “We saw the carriages coming up the drive, they’ll be here any second. And she’s not alone. She’s got the Dowager Duchess of Albany and somebody from the Vulcanian royal family with her.”

Una spat out a string of curses that she must have picked up from her seafaring husband. Barry looked positively shocked, while Christine filed the words away for later examination. They sounded like good words to know in a crisis.

“You’re dressed,” she said to Christine, eyeing her choice of gown. “Get down there and welcome them. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Barry, I want the maroon silk, and unlock the jewel chest. If there’s royalty coming I need to look the part.”

The lady’s maid sprinted into action, and Christine left Una to her ministrations. She hurried down to the entrance foyer, but the carriages had not yet turned into the courtyard. Instead, she hastened to the breakfast room. She was in luck; Jim was there, as was Miss Rand and Joanna, and the princess. Spock was also at the table, although he was sipping from a cup of his specially brewed tea and not eating.

“Thank goodness I found you,” Christine panted, slightly out of breath. “Jim, your mother is coming up the drive in her carriage. Your highness, there is also another carriage bearing the Vulcanian royal arms.”

If Christine had not been present to witness the private conversation between the prince and princess the night before, she would have missed the confused glance she shot him, and the barely perceptible shake of the head he gave in return. He hadn’t sent the message yet, Christine realised. Whatever brought the Vulcanians to Berkely, it wasn’t the proposed marriage between their heir and a daughter of the East African royal house.

“My mother?” Jim said in wonderment. “What is she doing here? She never leaves Town during the Season.”

“Grandmama!” Joanna said cheerfully. “I must show her Buttons!”

Miss Rand opened her mouth to speak, but Jim got in first.

“That’s a wonderful idea, Jo,” he said brightly. “But you know that Buttons can be a bit lively before he has his walk. Why don’t you take him down to the gardens for a nice long run around, and then get one of the footmen to help you bathe him, so he smells nice for Grandmama?”

“I can put a ribbon around his neck!” Joanna said, beaming.

“That sounds like an excellent plan,” Jim said solemnly, beckoning to one of the footmen that lined the side of the room. “Please escort Lady Joanna out into the gardens and help her give her dog a nice long walk,” he instructed, emphasising the _long_. “Then aid her in bathing him.”

“Very good, your Grace,” the footman said, bowing.

“Come on,” said Joanna determinedly, grabbing the footman by the hand. “I hope you can run fast, because Buttons is very quick over open ground.”

“I won the hundred yards dash at the village fete last spring, my lady,” the footman could be heard saying cheerfully as he closed the door behind them.

Joanna had wrapped the entire staff of Berkely Hall around her little finger approximately ten minutes after arriving there. Christine had no doubt that Una’s son or daughter would be as spoiled as Joanna had been during her stay.

Christine was under no illusion as to why Joanna had been sent away; Jim had that look in his eye, the one that always preceded one of his crack-pot plans. He was going to use the sudden appearance of his mother for a last stand, do-or-die attempt to woo Miss Rand. Christine was not entirely sure what was going to happen, but she was sure that she wanted ringside seats for the fireworks that were bound to occur.

“If you’d like to go into the blue drawing room, I’ll have refreshments served,” Christine informed the room.

“I will wait for you all there,” the princess replied, setting aside her napkin. Spock rose to assist her from her seat, and said something quietly to her in a language that was not English. The princess nodded once, and then stroked her fingers deliberately along the length of his. Christine’s eyebrows rose; that gesture was one that was commonly known to be the Vulcanian equivalent of a kiss. To do such a thing in public was unheard of; it was act of a married Vulcanian couple, not two people not yet formally engaged.

Jim openly goggled at them, and Miss Rand turned her head to give the couple a modicum of privacy. Christine would have been more surprised if she hadn’t witnessed an altogether more immodest example of their intimacy the night before. That led to think about her own example of immodest intimacy, and she blushed as her body started to tingle with sense memory.

And she hadn’t even been compromised, not _really_. Her hymen was still intact, the earl - _Leonard_ she corrected herself, her fiancé, her _lover_ \- had guided her so she could trace the thin tissue with the soft tip of her forefinger. It was the barrier to her inner secrets, he had whispered in her ear, and he would broach it when they were man and wife. In the heat of the moment it had all sounded so wonderfully thrilling, especially when Leonard had gone on to do such gloriously wicked things with his mouth. Now, though, in the cold light of day, now that she had knowledge of just how large Leonard was, Christine wondered at just how he would fit down there, and how much it would hurt when he did. It couldn’t be that bad, she reasoned, or women just wouldn’t do it again after the first time.

The sound of Roddenberry clearing his throat brought her attention back to the matter at hand.

“Carriages are pulling up in the courtyard, my lady,” he informed her. “The staff is assembling.”

“Very good, Roddenberry,” she told him. “My sister is dressing, and will be with us momentarily. The Admiral has been informed. Please have rooms made ready and refreshments brought to the blue drawing room, including Vulcanian tea.”

She left the room and returned to the large doors to the house. In the courtyard there was the usual organised chaos as grooms ran up to help calm the horses, footmen appeared to help the occupants down to the ground, baggage was unloaded and the servants’ carriages were directed around to the back of the house. In the middle of this noise and confusion, there was a familiar booming voice.

“Christine! How well you look! Come and give your papa a kiss!”

Christine smiled and did just that. She was swept into familiar, strong arms and given a big hug that wrinkled her gown and knocked some of her hairpins askew. She wouldn’t have had it any other way. Her mother was directly behind her father and welcomed her in a more ladylike but no less loving way.

By this time the Admiral, hastily redressed in finer clothes than he usually wore at home, had appeared and Una, now fully dressed and looking positively regal in her bearing, had arrived.

They greeted the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury with affection, and reacquainted themselves with the Dowager Duchess of Albany. The Dowager Duchess then brought forward the two people that Christine had never met before, although she could have guessed their identities merely by looking at them. One was a tall, distinguished Vulcanian male, his bearing proud and erect. He was most handsome, although in a fearsome sort of way. The other was a woman, much smaller than her tall husband, but no less distinguished. She was not Vulcanian, although her dress was of the Vulcanian style. They did not wear any formal symbols of their rank and status, but something about them whispered very firmly about their royal background.

Christine curtsied as she was introduced to the rulers of Vulcania, the parents of the prince that she had left sipping tea in the breakfast room. He was now standing stiffly at the end of the presentation line, waiting to be noticed by his parents. He acknowledged them with the standard Vulcanian greeting and hand gesture, and his father replied in kind. His mother embraced him in the English fashion, and kissed him on the cheek. She noted that he was wearing the jacket she had sent him and started quizzing him on his health and well being. He looked faintly embarrassed by the attention, in as much as any Vulcanian permitted themselves to display emotion.

Parents, it seemed to Christine, who was resettling her hairpins, were the same no matter who you were. It was a comforting thought.

Roddenberry whispered discreetly to Una, who announced refreshments in the blue drawing room. They moved into the house, with the Dowager and the Crown Princess commenting favourably on the aspect of the house and the interior decor. Christine remained close to her father as the admiral escorted his mother-in-law into the house.

“Have you had a good time in the country, Christine?” her father asked, as they brought up the rear of the party.

“I have,” Christine admitted. “Far more so than I thought I would.”

“Your sister has written that she has several unmarried male guests,” her father said cautiously, as if he were paddling in uncharted waters.

“There are several gentlemen here at Berkely,” Christine acknowledged. She looked up at her father’s enquiring face, and gave in to her excitement and nerves.

“There is one gentleman in particular, the Earl of Arundel, that I am most desirous you meet,” Christine told him.

“I see,” her father said gently. “You approve of this gentleman?”

“Oh, Papa, with all my heart,” sighed Christine. “He is all I could wish for.”

“You love him?” her father asked, pausing in the corridor to allow the others to walk further ahead.

“I do,” Christine affirmed. “And my feelings are returned. Papa, he is a man of science. He has trained as a doctor!”

“A scientist, eh?” said her father, looking visibly pleased with this revelation. “And you have discussed scientific matters with him?”

“Oh yes, Papa, and he actually listens to what I have to say!” Christine marvelled. “He has promised to build me a laboratory of my own in Arundel House.”

The Earl of Shrewsbury smiled. “There is more to building a lasting union with another than a shared interest in the natural sciences,” he warned gently.

“I know, Papa,” Christine replied, smiling. “But I believe that Leonard is truly the very best of men. He is an excellent father.”

“He is a widower?” the earl asked.

Christine nodded. “His wife died of smallpox when he was fighting the French, with Jim. Their daughter, Joanna, is now in his sole care. She is a delightful child. I’m sure you’ll adore her.”

“This is a big step,” her father said eventually. “You will become a parent immediately upon your marriage. Usually there is time to acclimatise yourself to the possibility.”

“We have discussed this,” Christine told her father. “We will not have a short engagement, to allow Joanna time to get used to the idea that I will be living with her and her father. Also, Arundel House is in need of some substantial refurbishment.”

Her father nodded, clearly content with the idea that the Earl was behaving responsibly towards both Christine and his own daughter. Christine waited with baited breath to hear his pronouncement on her plans for her future happiness.

“Your mother will be delighted to have another wedding to plan,” her father said eventually. “And you will be providing her with a grandchild to spoil immediately, which is also another point in your favour.”

Christine beamed at him, a few tears of happiness escaping down her cheeks.

“As if you won’t spoil her rotten yourself,” she accused.

“That is the privilege of grandparents,” he told her with eyes that were glassy with a few tears of his own. “It will be your job to raise her, and ours to indulge her.”

They had reached the doors of the blue drawing room.

“Then we have your consent?” Christine asked, brushing the tears away with the back of her hand.

“Send your young man to me when things have calmed down a little,” her father told her, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

“Things? What things?” Christine asked puzzled.

Her father smiled, and gestured for a footman to swing the doors to the blue drawing room open.

“Wait and see.”

 

McCoy swallowed nervously as he bowed over the hand of the woman that, if everything went to plan, would soon become his mother-in-law.

“Ah, Lord Arundel, Winnie has told me all about you,” the Countess of Shrewsbury said with a smile that reminded him of Christine. “She is most fond of you.”

“Her Grace is too kind,” McCoy told her. “She has been a wonderful guardian to my daughter.”

The Countess’ face brightened.

“Yes, she told me that you have brought your child with you to Gloucestershire. Is she here?”

“I believe that she is in the gardens with one of the footmen, exercising her puppy,” McCoy said apologetically.

“Children should get plenty of time outdoors,” the Countess said happily. “Is she an active child?”

“Very much so,” McCoy said, brightening. Joanna was his favourite topic of conversation. “I am currently engaged in teaching her to ride, and she is enjoying it immensely.”

“Oh that is splendid news,” the Countess said agreeably. “When the children were younger we used to go out for family rides when we were in the country. It was so good to see my three happy and confident on their horses. Do you plan on having more children, Lord Arundel?”  
As conversational openings went, it was incredibly blunt.

“It is my greatest desire, Lady Shrewsbury,” McCoy said honestly. “But that is not entirely my decision to make.”

“No,” agreed the older woman thoughtfully. “No, it is not.”

She eyed him shrewdly, and McCoy beat back the thought that he was being weighed, measured and assessed. He found himself standing slightly straighter, and pushing his chest out a little further.

“You have made the acquaintance of my daughter while you have been here at Berkely Hall,” she said eventually. It was not a question.

“I have been honoured to meet Lady Christine, yes,” McCoy replied carefully. “In fact, I owe her a large debt of gratitude.”

“How so, sir?” Lady Shrewsbury asked immediately, her eyes narrowing.

“If it were not for the brave actions of your daughter, my Joanna would have drowned after she fell into the river here,” McCoy said simply. “Lady Christine was the closest to water, and she rescued her and brought her back to shore. Without her bravery, Joanna would have died.”

Lady Shrewsbury paled visibly, and McCoy immediately regretted springing the news on her like that. He wondered if she would faint, but she was clearly made of sturdier stock than most Society ladies.

“My dear boy,” she said weakly, reaching out to clasp his wrist with her small hand. “You must have been so scared.”

“I was terrified,” McCoy admitted. “Nothing I experienced during war time could come close to the horror of losing Joanna.”

“My youngest, Andrew – Viscount Telford – I nearly lost him to an accident when he was very young,” the countess said quietly. “We were in the park, and he darted out of my grip. He ran directly into the path of some gentlemen on horseback. If it were not for their quick reactions and the bravery of the nursemaid who ran after him, he would have been killed. I have never known a fear like it.”

“He was unharmed?” McCoy asked.

“Oh yes, until he got home, and I smacked his backside for doing something so dangerous,” the Countess said grimly. “He never did such a thing again.”

McCoy couldn’t help but smile at the woman. If Christine turned out like her mother, he was sure everything would be just fine.

The countess smiled back at him. “You’ll do,” she told him cryptically, then she moved off purposefully towards the tea trolley.

McCoy watched her in bewilderment, but then the doors opened again to admit Lady Christine and her father, and behind them Princes Pavel and Hikaru, and the round of introductions began again. Christine drifted over towards him as her father joined her mother.

“I told my father,” she said quietly. “About us, I mean.”

“And?” McCoy said eagerly.

Christine smiled. “He seems in favour of the match, but he wants to speak to you later.”

“I think your mother has given me a seal of approval also,” McCoy informed her.

“Look out,” murmured Christine, “but I think that the Crown Prince and Princess are about to meet their new daughter in law.”

They looked over towards the other side of the room, where Spock was standing conversing quietly with the princess. She nodded briskly to something he said, then he extended his hand to her. She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet, then he placed her arm so it lay directly on his right arm, lacing their fingers together. They walked towards his parents, where she performed the curtsey required from one royal to another; deep enough to show respect for their position, but not so deep as to imply that she was of a lower rank. Tricky, Christine decided, but the princess had looked effortlessly grateful as she did it.

Crown Prince Sarek’s face registered no emotion as his son presented Princess Nyota to them, but the Crown Princess drew in an audible breath and smiled widely.

“Spock, who is this beautiful young woman?” his mother asked him.

“Mother, I have the honour of presenting the Princess Nyota Uhura of the Alliance of Eastern Africa to you as my _ko-kugalsu_.”

“Oh, Spock!” his mother said happily. “What wonderful news! My dear, I am so happy to meet you!”

“As I am you, your highness,” Princess Nyota replied, relief evident in her eyes at the prospect of being accepted by Spock’s mother.

“You must call me Amanda,” corrected the Crown Princess. “Sarek, what do you think of this happy news?”

It was clear to all in the room what Princess Amanda wanted her husband to say. Everybody was waiting with baited breath to see what the impassive Vulcanian would say. If he was not in favour of the engagement that his son had announced with the introduction of Princess Nyota as his _ko-kugalsu_ , it would cause a rift in the royal house of Vulcania and have the potential to affect international politics as countries scrambled to back either Sarek or Spock. The Admiral looked particularly concerned; the trade and military aid treaty he had just successfully negotiated could well be made null and void if Sarek rejected his son’s choice of bride.

After what seemed like an interminable time, Crown Prince Sarek raised his hand and offered the traditional greeting to Princess Nyota, addressing her as _ko-fu_ ; daughter. She repeated the gesture and greeting in flawless Vulcanian, addressing him as _sa-mekh_ ; father.

“How lovely!” the Dowager Duchess of Albany said loudly. “You must be so happy, Amanda, to have a daughter in law so accomplished as her highness. I wish that I were so lucky.”

She looked pointedly at Jim, who stared back evenly and said nothing. He did, however, turn his head to glance at Miss Rand, who had retreated to the very back of the room and was trying to stay out of the sightline of anybody important. She bit her lip and looked uneasy, but she didn’t break eye contact with him. After a moment, she nodded hesitantly, and then again, more firmly.

The look on Jim’s face, McCoy noted, was incredible. His expression changed from mulish displeasure with the situation, to a plea, to disbelief, to great joy.

“Really?” Jim mouthed silently to Miss Rand, as the Dowager complained loudly about ungrateful sons who refused to do their dynastic duty.

“Yes,” she mouthed back, a silly grin on her face. “I love you,” she added, carefully shaping her mouth so Jim could be clear about her meaning.

Jim interrupted his mother in the middle of a loud recitation of all the available titled ladies that Jim had refused to propose to.

“Actually, mother, you will have a most accomplished daughter in law.”

The Dowager paused in mid flow, raising an eyebrow coolly.

“Indeed?” she asked, casting a glance around the room and landing on Christine. She smiled at her, but McCoy could tell that there was a spark of disappointment in the older woman’s eyes.

“It will be a pleasure to welcome Lady Christine to the family,” the dowager said calmly.

“No!” said Christine firmly, causing a few raised eyebrows in the room. Somewhere in the background Prince Pavel whispered furiously to Prince Hikaru.

“No?” enquired the Dowager, sounding amused. “Whatever do you mean, child, no?”

“I mean, your Grace, that I am not engaged to your son,” Christine said firmly. She clutched McCoy’s hand, and he straightened up slightly and tried to look noble. “I am engaged to the Earl of Arundel.”

There were a few gasps and whispers around the room. McCoy could see Christine wince slightly.

“That is, I will be engaged to the Earl of Arundel, when my father gives his consent,” she amended.

“And do you?” enquired the Dowager of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Seeing as he comes most _highly_ recommended, then yes, on the condition that the engagement is of at least three months duration,” the Earl said over the hubbub in the room.

“I find that most acceptable, my lord,” McCoy replied, bowing his head.

“We’ll talk later,” the Earl sighed as the noise level increased again.

Quietly in the background, McCoy saw Prince Hikaru look smug and Prince Pavel annoyed as the latter handed a folded banknote to the former. It appeared that the Duke and Duchess of Riverside were not the only people in Berkely Hall to have a wager on Christine and himself.

“If you are not engaged to Lady Christine, may I ask exactly who you are engaged to?”

The Dowager’s voice was so frosty you could use it to chill drinks.

McCoy watched as Jim walked calmly to Miss Rand, took her hand, kissed it, and brought her up for his mother’s inspection.

“I am engaged to Miss Rand, mother.”

There was silence in the room. You could have heard a particle of dust drop, had Roddenberry ever allowed dust to settle in Berkely Hall to begin with.

McCoy looked anxiously at Jim, and then at his mother. He very much liked and respected the dowager, especially after she had been so kind to Joanna, but everybody knew that she had been intent on finding a wife for Jim from among the very highest echelons of society. McCoy was not sure how she would react now that Jim had announced he intended to marry a penniless governess.

“My son could have his pick of the very cream of society,” the Dowager Duchess said to Miss Rand quietly. “What makes you think that you are worthy of him?”

Christine inhaled sharply, and dug her fingers into his arm. McCoy understood the emotion. Miss Rand had been insulted to her face by the most important woman in England after the Queen. Lesser women would be crying by now, or fleeing the room.

McCoy silently prayed for the young woman to stand her ground and fight.

“I am not sure that I am worthy of your son’s love, your Grace,” Miss Rand said calmly, as if she were talking of nothing more serious than the weather or the state of the roads. “But I am grateful that I have it, and will strive every day to be worthy of it.”

“False modesty is no virtue, Miss Rand,” the Dowager warned.

“And neither is a refusal to face facts, your Grace,” Miss Rand returned. “I love your son, and he loves me. We will be married, and I will be the mother of the next Duke of Albany, and all of your other grandchildren. If you would like to remain in Albany House and get to know them, I suggest you start treating me with the respect my position will demand.”

“And if I do not?” the Dowager demanded icily.

“Then you will be retired to the dower house at one of Jim’s country estates, and I wish you well of the company you will keep, alone and isolated from the society you hold so dear.”

McCoy blinked. Miss Rand was not pulling her punches. Jim looked on in amazement, but did not step into the argument. He was wise enough to let the women in his life sort out their own issues.

Everyone in the room waited eagerly to hear what the Dowager would say next. Nobody in living memory had ever spoken to her with anything less than extreme deference. She had certainly never been threatened as she just had, and certainly not by the daughter of an impoverished country gentleman.

Slowly, the Dowager began to smile. She looked left at the Countess of Shrewsbury, and then right at the Crown Princess of Vulcania.

“What did I tell you, ladies?” she said triumphantly. “Did I not tell you she was the only one who could take my place?”

“You were right, Winnie,” the Countess said replied, smiling. “Miss Rand appears to be an excellent choice.”

“Indeed,” added the Crown Princess. “Your plan worked perfectly.”

“Your _plan_?” Jim said in amazement. “Mother, I demand that you explain yourself immediately.”

“My dear boy,” said the Dowager loftily, as she kissed a trembling Miss Rand on both cheeks, “You didn’t think I was serious with all that nonsense about an HRH, did you? You know I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy.”

“You seemed pretty damn serious about it at the time!” Jim shouted.

“Language, James,” scolded his mother. “There are ladies present.”

“I apologise,” Jim said tightly, through gritted teeth. “But mother...”

“I knew as soon as Miss Rand joined our household that she would be a perfect wife for you; intelligent, capable and given that she managed to control small children on a daily basis, could keep one step ahead of your ridiculous antics,” the Dowager said, pressing a hand onto Miss Rand’s wrist. “But I also knew that if I so much as mentioned her name to you in that context, you’d shy away.”

“You told me to steer clear of her and not so much as talk to her!” Jim protested.

“And you did exactly the opposite, which, my dear, you should be aware of as a tactic when dealing with him when he’s in one of his moods,” the Dowager advised a stunned Miss Rand.

“I am _not_ in one of my moods!” shouted Jim, inaccurately.

McCoy tried very hard to hold back a laugh. His fiancée buried her face into his shoulder, sniggering. In the background, Prince Hikaru sighed as he handed Prince Pavel’s banknote straight back to him.

“So you wanted us to marry?” Miss Rand asked her future mother in law.

“My dear, it would give me the very greatest joy,” the Dowager said humbly. “I could not ask for a kinder, more intelligent daughter than you.”

There was a pause, and then she added wickedly, “You’ve also got a backbone of steel, which you’ll need when you get thrown to the sharks at Almack’s. Exile me to the country, indeed. A fate worse than death, and don’t you just know it!”

Miss Rand looked at Jim, who appeared dazed and confused by the proceedings.

“You will be most welcome in Albany House, your Grace,” Miss Rand said confidently. “I have two brothers, and in a few years time, I will welcome your assistance in finding them suitable wives.”

“My dear, it will be my very greatest pleasure,” the Dowager replied, beaming.

“Wait, you mean this was all...planned?” Jim said suddenly, his brain catching up with events. “You pushed me towards Janice?”

“That’s right,” his mother said patiently.

“You knew we’d be coming to Gloucestershire, didn’t you?” Jim said shrewdly.

The Dowager shrugged. “I may have said something to the Regent about the seclusion of Berkely Hall,” she said airily. “A small party, young people, the absence of your mother laying down the law...”

Christine’s fingers tightened on McCoy’s sleeve again.

“Mother?” she said suspiciously. “Did you know anything of this plan? And what did Papa mean that Leonard came highly recommended?”

“Her Grace has been singing the praises of the Earl of Arundel for the last two years, Christine,” her mother said with an insouciant shrug of her shoulders. “We thought it about time that you two meet.”

“The material,” Christine said flatly.

“Well, you wouldn’t make an appointment at a decent dressmaker in London,” the Countess said peevishly. “I had to send you the raw materials and hope for the best. It appears to have worked, your gown is delightful, my dear.”

“This way Miss Rand would also benefit,” the Dowager added. “No doubt seeing her in a few pretty gowns heightened your ardour, James.”

“ _Mother_ ,” hissed Jim, scandalised, but even Miss Rand was beginning to smile at the whole affair.

“You arranged for our talks to be held here, your Grace?” Princess Nyota asked, a small smile playing on her lips.

“Once Amanda told me that they would be taking place, yes,” the Dowager said bluntly. “It was the only way that she could think of reuniting you and Spock after you parted ways in Lisbon.”  
Spock, who had been watching the proceedings with a very un-Vulcanian smugness suddenly allowed a look of shock to pass his face.

“ _Mother_?” he said in horror, turning to her. “Is this true?”

“Oh Spock,” she sighed. “Everyone could see that you and Nyota were supposed to be together apart from your stubborn selves, and if you were unwilling to do something to rectify the situation that you created yourself, then I had to do it. It is a parent’s prerogative.”

“I hope that we will be as wise when we consider the lives of our own children,” Princess Nyota said with a neat inclination of her head to include Spock in her statement, who was still struggling with the idea that his mother had stage-managed the most important moment of his life.

The room became filled with the light hearted chatter of happy people; the Admiral took the opportunity to announce that the Berkely Hall Agreement, as it would be known, had been agreed between Great Britain, Russia, Japan, Vulcania and the Alliance of Eastern Africa. It guaranteed military aid between the countries, trade agreements, diplomatic missions of cultural exploration and a binding promise that the countries would remain on friendly terms with each other. The last messages from the embassies in London had arrived a few days previously; Prince Hikaru would represent the Chrysanthemum Throne in London as Ambassador to the Court of St James. His emperor was pleased with his kinsman’s efforts in representing Japan, and wished him to continue in the role. Archduke Pavel was also to remain in London, attached to the embassy there, although the wording of the Tsar’s message indicated that was more to the fact that they were still rebuilding the Winter Palace rather than any great wish to have Pavel represent Russia.

It didn’t matter; to McCoy’s eyes the two men looked incredibly happy at the prospect of spending time together. Nobody would think it strange that two representatives from two great nations would need to meet often, especially after news of the Berkely Hall Agreement was announced in the newspapers.

“We will have to invite them to Arundel Castle for long visits,” Christine said in a low tone to him. “And give them adjoining rooms.”

“Of course, my dear,” McCoy said automatically, and smiled as she rolled her eyes at him.

“If only Joanna were here,” Christine sighed. “That would make this perfect.”

McCoy opened his mouth to reply, but a loud commotion from the corridor interrupted him. A dog was yapping shrilly, and a young female voice was raised in desperation. Men were shouting, doors were banging and somehow McCoy just knew what was about to happen.

The door to the blue drawing room had been opened to allow a footman to carry an tray of empty cups and saucers back down to the kitchen. A small brown streak, yapping furiously, zipped in through his feet, causing him to stumble and the tray to teeter dramatically. There was a loud intake of breath as the nobility in the drawing room watched the footman frantically try to get his feet under him again. He had _just_ achieved his goal when Joanna, running as fast her short legs could manage, rounded the corner carrying a bucket of water.

“Buttons, come back and have your bath!” she shouted as she cannoned into the unsteady footman.

The poor man was sent spinning. He lost control of the tea tray which plunged to the floor in a loud crash. Joanna tripped over the man’s feet and staggered forwards, losing control of the bucket which sailed through the air in a perfect arc. The water shot out of the bucket and landed directly on Buttons, who was chasing his own tail madly in the middle of the room. The dog yelped loudly and promptly shook itself, flinging water all over every person in the room who hadn’t already been splashed when the bucket hit the ground.

There was a stunned silence in the room that was broken by Joanna saying quietly, “I’m in trouble now, aren’t I?” from her position sprawled on the floor.

McCoy turned to Christine, who was still reeling from getting thoroughly soaked by the bucket.

“Love me, love my daughter,” he said quietly.

“ _Our_ daughter,” sighed Christine. “I’ll get her, you get the dog.”

“I have never loved you more,” McCoy said truthfully, taking in her bedraggled appearance and dripping hair.

“Just wait until we have our own,” Christine said darkly.

“I can’t wait,” McCoy said with a smile, picking up her hand and kissing it reverently, before spending twenty minutes trying to catch a mischievous puppy with the help of four princes, two princesses and an assortment of amused nobility.

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	13. A Suitable Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

Title: A Suitable Match  
Author: [](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/profile)[**fringedweller**](http://fringedweller.livejournal.com/)  
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.  
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.  
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end  
Beta: The fabulous [](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/profile)[**seren_ccd**](http://seren-ccd.livejournal.com/) , also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to [](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://searingidolatry.livejournal.com/)**searingidolatry** who made all the fantastic graphics.  
Length: 1743/64599  
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.

Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.

Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality.

_Epilogue_

_Three years later_

“I thought I would find you here.”

Lady Christine looked up from her book and smiled at her husband, who had flicked the lock on the door handle. She knew what he was about.

“And where else would I be?” she demanded, laying aside the copy of Sommering’s _De corporis humani fabrica_ that he had bought her as his first official courting gift when they had returned to London after their sojourn in Gloucestershire.

“You have gone to such trouble to furnish me with a laboratory, it would be churlish of me not to use it,” Christine went on, standing from her desk and crossing to her husband to kiss him good afternoon.

She sighed in pleasure as the simple gesture turned into a longer, more passionate kiss. No amount of the racy French novels that she had hurriedly read in order to prepare her for married life had been able to convey the sheer perfection of a kiss from a man that knew how to pleasure you intimately.

She squealed in delight as her husband swept her neatly from her feet and deposited her onto the desk, pushing her papers and books out of the way into a messy heap.

“Leonard!” she breathed, scandalised. “Here?”

“We’ve broken in everywhere else,” he said roguishly, his hands already busy with the fastenings of her gown. “This is the only room left.”

That was true, Christine realised, as her husband made short work of her gown and chemise. Ever since they had taken possession of the newly refurbished Arundel House, they had made it their mission to make love in every available room above stairs. Leonard had been in favour of venturing below stairs also, but Christine had put her foot down; if the servants had found out, they would have been left with no help whatsoever. The high moral probity of their staff must be maintained, even if their own was lacking. Christine’s laboratory-cum-study was the last room left in their amorous adventures after their encounter in the music room the week before.

Christine would no longer be able to look at a grand piano without blushing.

“This is not fair,” she managed to say as her corset was removed and her breasts were freed. “I am naked, and you are still fully dressed!”

“I cannot damage my cravat,” Leonard said apologetically. “I’ll never get it tied again, and Jim will be bringing the children back in an hour.”

Joanna, now the bossy mistress of a nursery that contained her younger brother, the fair haired and cheerful two year old James, Viscount Sudely, had been taken out for a ride in the park and ices by her favourite aunt and uncle, along with their young daughter, diplomatically named after her grandmother. Jim had never known his father, and paid no attention to those that recommended that parents, especially fathers, remain out of the nursery. Indeed, he spent as much time as he possible could with little Winona and could often be found signing letters of business with his daughter dandling on his knee. Now that Janice was large with their next child, he was renovating some of the interior of Albany House to include a nursery suite on the ground floor, close to their offices.

“Very well,” sighed Christine, knowing only too well how erotically charged the sight of her naked body in front of his clothed one was, and the effect it had on her husband. It was how little Jimmy had been conceived, after all. “But I’m keeping my stockings on.”

“As you wish,” her husband murmured, lowering his head to suckle hungrily on first one, then the other, of her nipples. The effect on her body was instantaneous, and the ripples of pleasure started up immediately, especially when he let his teeth graze over her tender flesh. His large fingers found their way surely to where her legs had parted wantonly, and he teased her there while she squirmed under his amorous assault.

“No you don’t,” she panted. “You don’t get to have all the fun.”

Somehow she found the strength to wriggle out from under him, and she jerked at the buttons of his breeches. She unbuttoned the flap and pulled his rapidly hardening length free, sliding her hand along it appreciatively. She had come a long way from the hesitant touches of her first night with him back at Berkely Hall, and it was now with some authority that she pushed him backwards until he sat down heavily into a wide arm chair. She usually used it when she curled up with a book, but she could see how its spaciousness could have other uses.

He groaned as she sank to her knees in front of him, her tongue darting out to trace carefully around the head of his manhood. Christine took her time, letting her tongue lave carefully over the slit before she let whole head slip carefully in and out of her mouth.  
(She appreciated it when he used his teeth on her breasts, but trial and error had proved that he most emphatically did not require them used on his most tender area.)

Each time she bobbed her head up and down his length she took a little more into her mouth, letting her lips drag up and down his shaft. She felt his fingers wind into her hair, dislodging some of Gaila’s artfully arranged curls, and she hummed in pleasure at the weight of his hand there, guiding her head as she sucked.

“Up,” he said through gritted teeth. “Up, or it all ends now.”

“Mmm, we can’t be having that, can we?” she laughed after one long, slow, drawn-out final suck that made him groan so loudly she thought their butler would be hammering on the door to enquire who needed medical assistance.

She knelt over his lap, knees sliding between his thighs and the side of the chair. She positioned herself carefully, then sank down slowly on his length, relishing every moment as the thick member pushed itself up into the hot warmth of her.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Oh, that’s so good.”

This position was one of her favourites; rigorous experimentation had been conducted on the subject, and this definitely proved to be one of the more successful at stimulating that spot inside her that when combined with the little nub her husband was currently rubbing, sent her into a blissful state of semi-consciousness.

She rode him slowly to begin with, stealing kisses as she ground and wriggled against him, but sped up when he returned his attention to her breasts again.

“Go on,” he growled in her ear. “You’re close, aren’t you? I can tell by the way you’re squeezing me so tight. Go on, Christine.”

He punctuated his words with slaps to her backside, as if she were a horse and he the rider, spurring her on to win the race to pleasure. She bounced faster on his length, breasts jiggling with the effort as she chased that flickering of pleasure that was dancing around the pit of her stomach. She caught up to it and let it wash over her as she clenched hard with her internal muscles around her husband’s length and he spilled into her.

She draped herself over him, not at all self conscious of the fact that he was fully dressed and she was naked except for her stockings.

“Mmmm,” she sighed. “I do so like it when the children are out of the house.”

He laughed into her hair, which he was playing with.

“Good mothers do not say such things,” he scolded.

“Good mothers do not clamber into attics and make love while dressed in old clothes found in boxes up there, but I did that,” Christine reminded him, with a poke to the side. “They also do not bend naked over billiard tables, but I remember doing that, also.”

“I think that was my favourite,” Leonard said, drifting into reverie with a happy smile on his face.

“Make the most of it,” Christine advised him. “Pretty soon I won’t be able to bend over anything. I’ll be too big.”

Leonard’s eye lit up as he caught on to her meaning.

“You mean...” he said, his hand descending to cover her lower abdomen.

“That’s right,” she sighed. “I think it was the library that did it.”

“Up a ladder,” marvelled Leonard. “I did not think it possible.”

“You should know by now that I can do anything I set my mind to,” Christine said airily.

“That’s right,” he agreed immediately. It wasn’t worth the effort of arguing, and now that she carried his child that meant that he would automatically give her whatever she wanted.

“I love you,” he told her.

“And I love you,” she returned, bringing his face down to hers for a sweet kiss. “Now help me get dressed, and go and amuse the children while I bring some semblance of order to my desk. They’ll be back any minute.”

He laced her back into her corset, settled her dress over her chemise, and stayed away from her hair, which she tidied herself. He gave her one last kiss as he left her happily re-piling papers and stacking books, and went to intercept his children, who were alternately running and crawling across the black and white tiled entry hall, to the consternation of the butler.

“Jim!” he called to his old friend, who was as bad as one of the children he was currently cavorting with. “Let Winona go upstairs with my two. I have news that calls for the best brandy in my cellar.”

“Begone, hobgoblins!” Jim said, handing his daughter over to one of the Arundel nursery maids who had come to round up the children after their excursion. “Go and terrify your nurses.”

“Bones!” he boomed, coming over to clap Leonard on the back. “Are we to hear the patter of tiny feet?”

“We are,” he said proudly, handing Jim a snifter in his study. “In about six months, or thereabouts.”

“That’s not fair,” lamented Jim. “You’ll always be one ahead of Janice and I.”

“You never know,” McCoy said generously, as they clinked their glasses together. “You may have twins.”

“Twins!” Jim said cheerfully. “That’s a happy thought. At least for me, anyway. Janice probably wouldn’t be too happy about it.”

As it turned out, she _wasn’t_ , but that is another story.

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End file.
